RUIA, ESSAR STEEL MOVE NCLT TO QUASH ARCELORMITTAL’S BID

In an attempt to crawl back into the Essar Steel game, Essar Group Director Prashant Ruia has moved a fresh application before the NCLT Ahmedabad Bench, seeking to quash ArcelorMittal's takeover bid. The petition, moved on February 1, is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday and includes Essar Steel's former managing director Dilip Oommen as well as project director Rajiv Kumar Bhatnagar as joint petitioners. The two-member Bench is yet to admit the petition. In what is being seen as the Ruia family's bid to delay Essar's insolvency process further, the petition calls for stay on "any further proceedings in Interlocutory Application (IA) No.431 of 2018, preferred by the resolution professional under Section 30(6) of the Code". IA No.431 pertains to ArcelorMittal's bid, approved by 92 per cent CoC, which has come up for hearing after the NCLT Ahmedabad Bench pronounced Essar Steel Asia Holding's ~54,000crore settlement proposal as non-maintainable. Based on a recent SC judgment in the case of Ruchi Soya, the petitioners have sought that the suspended board of directors be included in all CoC meetings. The petition has prayed for NCLT Ahmedabad to direct Essar's RP Satish Kumar Gupta "to convene a meeting of the committee of creditors, wherein the resolution plans submitted by the potential resolution applicants be deliberated and discussed afresh and thereafter voted upon".