Charu Mathur: Right sir! Sir now let’s move on to the Essar case. I mean you cannot have any talk of IBC if you don’t talk about Essar, your take on the Essar?

U K Chaudhary: I have been a counsel for Prashant Lohiya in/before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, and my understanding of Hon’ble Supreme Court’s judgment in Essar Steel may be slightly colored in that sense. But I personally feel that some part of the Essar Steel has not been in consonance with our understanding of the IB Code, that particularly saying, that the corporate guarantor’s or the personal guarantor’s liability can continue even beyond the resolution process when the banks have agreed to take a haircut, may not be a very fair interpretation of the IB Code. But anyway, Supreme Court is a Supreme Court. And their judgment, so long it is not reviewed or changed or modified by other benches, binding on all tribunals and certainly binding on all lawyers, not to speak against that order. But according to me that more balanced view possibly could have been taken between the rights of the ex-management and the rights of the bankers and for the same reason, the rights between the financial creditors and the operational creditors.

Charu Mathur: Sir, but you will agree with their first order where they’ve made Mr Laxmi Mittal’s company pay for the debt of Uttam Galva?

U K Chaudhary: Yes, at that point of time also, I have appeared for Lohiyas. So, I thought that was a very justified order that—number one, avoiding liquidation, maximizing the assets of the corporate which is in insolvency and bankruptcy, and then giving a fair opportunity to every person to be a resolution applicant. So, where the first order was a very balanced order, the second order has not maintained the same spirit of balancing the interest of the various stakeholders, which is also the objective of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. If you read the Preamble, the Preamble very clearly provides that—it provides for the balancing of the interest of all the stakeholders. So, from that perspective, I feel that the Hon’ble Supreme Court could have viewed it a little more closely, maintaining the balance between the various stakeholders.