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2018 (1) TMI 953 - HC - Insolvency and BankruptcyConstitutional validity of Section 4(b) of the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provisions) Repeal Act, 2003 - grievance of the petitioner is that its scheme, which was pending before BIFR, was at a very advanced stage and was almost on the verge of acceptance, a day prior to the notification of the Repeal Act - Held that:- Once a law is repealed and a new legislation has been put in its place, it is not open for anyone to contend that it should be continued to be governed by the old enactment, except where actions under the existing laws had concluded. The applicability of the repealed legislation is only to the extent as provided in the Savings clause and nothing more. Under the newly enacted Section 4(b) there are only two classes of persons, namely (i) those persons in whose cases schemes were sanctioned and (ii) those persons in whose cases the schemes were pending. In the former, there are two sub-classes namely; - schemes which were required to be implemented, where the NCLT could be approached and - schemes where appeals were yet to be filed by the party aggrieved, where the NCLAT could be approached. In the latter class of cases, there is only one remedy i.e. to approach the NCLAT within a period of 90 days. To this, there could be no quarrel. The broad classification of cases where schemes are sanctioned and not sanctioned is intelligible as both would be governed by the Code including the implementation, supervision and appeals arising therefrom. Thus, there is no discrimination whatsoever. The second proposition that the Petitioner has a ‘legitimate expectation’ does not have any legal basis, inasmuch as the right of the Petitioner to approach the appropriate forum has not been taken away. The Petitioner was provided with the remedy to approach the NCLT within a period of 180 days. In law, there could not be a legitimate expectation to be governed by the repealed enactment when the manifest intention of the Legislature is to completely replace the said enactment with a new insolvency regime. By operation of law, the forum which the Petitioner can approach has been changed and a remedy was thus available to the Petitioner. On a query as to why the Petitioner chose not to approach the NCLT, the response was that the Petitioner wanted to be governed by the repealed Act, i.e., SICA and not in accordance with the Code as provided for under Section 4(b). Such a submission lacks any legal basis and is liable to be rejected. Thus the validity of Section 4(b) is upheld and the writ petition is dismissed.
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