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2022 (10) TMI 382 - Tri - Insolvency and BankruptcyMaintainability of application - initiation of CIRP - Corporate Debtor failed to make repayment of its dues - Operational Creditors - existence of debt and dispute or not - service of demand notice - threshold limit involved in the appeal - HELD THAT:- The Applicant has placed on record the invoices which are due to be cleared by the Corporate Debtor. Further, the Applicant had issued a demand notice, as mandated by Section 8 of the Code, 2016. Such notice had been received and replied to, by the Corporate Debtor. A certificate issued by the HDFC Bank, Jalna Branch, certifying that the account of the Applicant held in the said bank has not received the sum of Rs. 97,65,235 or any part thereof, from the Corporate Debtor, between 08.06.2017 to 10.05.2019, is also attached. Further, the Applicant has complied with all the requirements as stipulated under the provisions of the Code, 2016, for the purpose of initiating the CIRP against the Corporate Debtor. In these circumstances, it is satisfying that the Applicant has proved its case by placing evidence with regard to the debt owed by the Corporate Debtor and its default. Threshold limit of amount involved in the appeal - HELD THAT:- It may be of some significance to note here that the total amount of debt that is due in the instant Application is below the current threshold amount of Rupees One Crore, which is mandatory for the initiation of the CIRP - The instant Application was filed in the year 2019, when the threshold amount for the initiation of CIRP was only Rupees One Lakh. It has been judicially settled that the increase in the threshold amount will have a prospective effect and not a retrospective one. The National Company Law Tribunal, New Delhi Bench in its judgment in BLS Polymers Ltd. v. RMS Power Solutions (P) Ltd. [2021 (7) TMI 1331 - NATIONAL COMPANY LAW TRIBUNAL, NEW DELHI] held that the notification, dated 24.3.2020, numbered as CG-DL-E-24032020-218898, which enhanced the threshold limit from Rupees One Lakh to Rupees One Crore to initiate insolvency proceedings under the Code, 2016 is only applicable in respect of defaults that occurred on or after the date of notification, i.e., 24.3.2020 and not prior to that - In the case at hand, as per the invoices, the amounts were due and payable prior to the issuance of the said notification, dated 24.03.2020. Hence, the notification increasing the threshold amount has no application here. The instant petition is, hereby, admitted and this Adjudicating Authority orders the commencement of the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process which shall ordinarily get completed within the timelines stipulated in the Code, 2016, reckoning from the date of this order - Application admitted - moratorium declared.
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