Authority: National Company Law Tribunal, Division Bench, Court-1, Ahmedabad

Order Date: 13 July 2026

Case Overview

This is an order in a petition filed under Section 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016. The applicant/operational creditor is Reshma Ratnakar Kulkarni, Proprietor of M/s SRS Engineering & Healthcon Projects. The respondent/corporate debtor is Shree Additives (Pharma & Foods) Pvt. Ltd.

The key issue before the tribunal was a procedural dispute regarding the legibility of documents. The applicant's counsel, Mr. Sidhant Somani and Mr. Sunil Bhavsar, submitted that the reply served by the respondent contained illegible pages (specifically pages 22 to 25 and 38 & 39). Due to this illegibility, the applicant could not file its rejoinder within the prescribed period and had requested the respondent to furnish a legible copy.

The respondent's counsel, Mr. Kunal Vaishnav, refuted this submission and contended that a legible copy had already been served upon the applicant through WhatsApp on 29 June 2026. When called upon to substantiate this claim, the respondent's counsel produced the WhatsApp message on his mobile phone. Upon perusal, the bench found that the mentioned pages were indeed not legible, a fact that was also demonstrated by the applicant through screen sharing.

The tribunal specifically deprecated the conduct of the respondent's counsel for asserting that a legible copy had been served when the evidence clearly showed otherwise.

Final Outcome

The National Company Law Tribunal directed the respondent/corporate debtor to serve a complete and legible copy of its reply (as uploaded on the DMS Portal) upon the applicant within 24 hours of the order and to upload proof of such service. Following this service, the applicant/operational creditor is granted liberty to file its rejoinder, if any, within ten days from the date of receiving the legible documents.

The matter is listed for further consideration on 27 July 2026.

The order was signed by both members of the bench: Mr. Sanjeev Sharma (Member Technical) and Mr. Shammi Khan (Member Judicial).

Topics: Insolvency Proceeding, NCLT Order, Document Disclosure