ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2026, a five-member bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has issued a stay on the Subhash Chandra’s Insolvency case verdict. The NCLT had earlier issued its decision on August 25, 2026 by a smaller bench comprising three members. This verdict was given by a third member—Nilesh Sharma—after the two-member Division Bench Of Ashok Kumar Bhardwaj (Member Judicial), and Reena Sinha Puri (Member Technical), gave a split verdict on the repayment plan.
The plan was approved, and Subhash Chandra had to pay an amount of Rs 6.5 crore of the Rs 22,000 crore admitted claims.
The verdict on the Subhash Chandra Insolvency case was an approval of the repayment plan—Rs 6.5 crore. After the initial split verdict between two members of the bench, it was Nilesh Sharma who had finally announced the verdict. According to Section 419(5) of the Companies Act, 2013, there is a requirement for a majority opinion in the resolution of such cases. However, this verdict failed to secure a majority consensus among the Bench Members. As a result, the division Bench referred the personal insolvency case against Subhash Chandra to the tribunal’s president for a fresh adjudication.
According to a report by The Hindu, the division bench on Monday said that since no majority view has emerged in spite of reconsiderations, the matter is referred back to the NCLT president. “Third member consciously passed an independent order. Thus, no majority view emerges and hence no order can be passed at this stage” The Hindu reported.
The Bench also flagged a crucial point in its announcement. Following the split between the two members, the Third Member approved the plan and extinguished the right of all the creditors by applying section 115(1) of the Insolvency Code uniformly.
Concerns were also raised on the fact that not every creditor was on the same page with the final decision of the bench. The repayment plan proposed by Subhash Chandra received a mandate of 80.814%, while creditors who opposed the plan accounted for 19.186%. As a result, banks and other creditors flagged their concerns over the low recovery rate.
Considering the multiple opinions of the creditors and the lack of a consensual final decision of the earlier Bench, a Five-member Bench of the NCLT was constituted to look into the case in a renewed fashion. The Special Bench informed all the stakeholders about the renewed process, and assured the consideration of all arguments before the final decision.
Following the announcement of the tribunal’s initial order, the lenders were not hesitant to point out their disagreements to it. LIC Housing finance—one of the creditors—issued a formal statement on X, announcing their intent to counter the given verdict. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta—who had appeared for the LIC housing Finance as well as the Canara Bank and Union Bank— mentioned it in front of an NCLAT Bench comprising Justice Yogesh Khanna, that this ruling might ‘defeat the very purpose of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, The Hindu reported.
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Subsequently, a five-member Bench was formed for the first time in the history of the NCLT to deal with this case afresh. The historic Bench would be led by President Justice (retd.) Anupinder Singh Grewal, Judicial Members Bachu Venkat Balaram Das and Mahendra Khandelwal, and Technical Members Atul Chaturvedi and Ravinder Chaturvedi, and was scheduled to begin the hearing at 10.15 a.m on Tuesday, September 1, 2026.
This entire saga of Chandra’s Insolvency case is crucial for us to watch closely not only as a headline of an alleged corruption story. A notable community of finance experts, policymakers and academics are pointing towards another thing we ought to focus: the strength of our institutions in ensuring the mitigation of insolvency and bankruptcy-related cases.
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