On 24 February 2026, the Supreme Court restored a ₹600 crore Section 7 IBC petition, holding that informal restructuring with one debenture holder cannot defeat a debenture-trustee application that did not follow the Debenture Trust Deed's amendment procedure.
On 9 April 2026, the Supreme Court restated the Mobilox Innovations discipline: in a Section 9 IBC application the Adjudicating Authority enquires only into the existence of a plausible pre-existing dispute, not its merits; NCLAT cannot conduct a mini-trial to test the defence.
NCLAT Principal Bench dismisses appeals against CCI's bid-rigging finding on the polyacetal protective-tubes suppliers to Indian Railways; reads 'punished accordingly' in Section 48(1) of the Competition Act 2002 (pre-2023 Amendment) to mean the individual penalty must match the enterprise penalty in scale, applied to the active partner's income.
NCLAT Principal Bench (Bhushan CP, Mitra and Baroka) holds that where a Technical Guidance Agreement itself creates a minimum-royalty obligation, the absence of invoices does not defeat a Section 9 application; ₹63 lakh deposit ordered failing which CIRP admission follows.
On 27 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that once the Committee of Creditors approves a resolution plan, the Successful Resolution Applicant cannot renegotiate its terms — to permit otherwise would cause the architecture of the IBC to crumble.
Valkya Editorial··8 min
Landmark JudgmentNational Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi
NCLAT held on 9 February 2026 that a contested endorsement-fee instalment, plausibly linked to actual service-days, gives rise at most to a damages claim, not to operational debt under s.5(21) IBC; CIRP cannot be a recovery forum.
On 10 March 2026, the Supreme Court held that a valuation report is not statutorily required for a section 66 capital reduction and that a NCLAT bench may have a majority of technical members.
The May 2026 cycle in Indian insolvency law has produced three threads running in parallel — the IBBI omnibus 19 May 2026 cluster amending the CIRP, Liquidation Process and PPIRP Regulations on a single day; the May 2026 operational implementation of the IBC (Amendment) Act 2026, including the new s.12A withdrawal architecture, the 14-day admission discipline, the new Chapter IV-A creditor-initiated insolvency resolution process, the 2-year avoidance look-back and the abolition of the fast-track CIRP; and the Supreme Court's real-estate course-correction in Alpha Corp v. GNIDA, the Dhanlaxmi Bank v. Mohd. Javed Sultan IBC-as-coercive-recovery line, the e-filing-without-certified-copy discipline under s.61(2), and the NCLAT's Purusottam Behera v. SBI reading on PIRP duration. Read together, the cycle discloses the operational architecture in which Indian insolvency practice now operates.
Across two engagements separated by four years, the Supreme Court has held the Tribunals Reforms architecture introduced by the Union to be inconsistent with the constitutional protection of judicial independence. In July 2021, a three-judge bench struck down provisions of the Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance, 2021 by 2:1. In November 2025, a two-judge bench led by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai held that the Tribunals Reform Act, 2021 was unconstitutional and inconsistent with the basic structure. A digest of both engagements, the doctrinal frame, and the tribunal-independence architecture they leave.
The May 2026 and first week of June 2026 cycle in securities and corporate-governance practice has produced three distinct doctrinal threads: the Supreme Court's tightening of the regulatory-versus-fraud boundary under the PFUTP Regulations in Reliance Industries v. SEBI and the parallel-track architecture confirmed in SEBI v. Terrascope Ventures; the NCLAT's reinforcement of the natural-justice line in the Grasim Industries reversal; and the SAT interim-relief template emerging from the Setco Automotive and Unison Metals stays. Read together with the SEBI Mutual Funds Regulations 2026 coming into force, the LODR Amendment Regulations 2026, the SAT-tested buy-back consultation, and the Bombay HC reference on consolidated multi-year SCNs, the cycle discloses the operational contours of the securities-regulation practice as it stands at mid-2026.
On 26 March 2021, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court set aside the NCLAT's reinstatement of Cyrus Mistry as Executive Chairman of Tata Sons and read down its order recasting Article 75 of the Tata Sons Articles of Association. The judgment delivers two doctrinal resets: a removal from the Board — even of a director nominated by a significant minority shareholder — does not by itself amount to oppression under Sections 241 and 242 of the Companies Act, 2013; and Articles of Association are not per se invalid merely because they confer powers that could potentially be exercised oppressively. The challenge, the Court held, must be to the exercise of the power, not to its existence.
The May 2026 NCLAT order setting aside the CCI's ₹301.6 crore penalty on Grasim Industries — on the procedural ground that the CCI failed to give the appellant notice of disagreement with the DG's findings — joins the April 2026 CCI directions for investigation into the Venkateshwara Hatcheries Group and the bid-rigging order against seventeen electrical contractors in the Assam Police Housing tenders. Read together with the closure of the Indigo / Air India cancellation-charges probe and the jurisdictional-boundary disposition in Roppen / Rapido, the cycle discloses the procedural and substantive contours of CCI practice as it stands at mid-2026.
A practitioner-oriented synthesis of the IBC dispositions that have shaped the first half of 2026 — Elegna's reaffirmation of the mandatory-admission threshold, Embassy Developments' clean reversal at the NCLAT Principal Bench, Gokul Aggarwal on the limits of Section 12A withdrawal post-liquidation, Kejriwal on the personal-guarantor invocation question, the Sunil Kumar Jain order on EPFO assessment within the Section 14 moratorium, and the KLSR Infratech costs order. The piece reads them as a coherent doctrinal map of where insolvency law in India stands at mid-2026.
Valkya Editorial··9 min
Landmark JudgmentNational Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi
On 4 May 2026, the NCLAT Principal Bench set aside an NCLT order from December 2025 that had admitted Embassy Developments Limited into CIRP — and closed the insolvency proceedings in their entirety. A digest of the disposal, the institutional posture it signals, and what it means for promoters fighting Section 7 / Section 9 admission at the threshold.
A clean NCLAT ruling on a question that had been quietly bedeviling resolution professionals across the country: can the EPFO continue assessment proceedings during a moratorium under Section 14 of the IBC? The Tribunal has held that it cannot — and that an assessment order passed during CIRP is, accordingly, unenforceable against the corporate debtor.
Valkya Editorial··8 min
Landmark JudgmentNational Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi
After a judicial member of the NCLAT Chennai bench recused himself in August 2025 — disclosing an attempt to influence the order through a former High Court judge — the matter went to the Principal Bench under the Supreme Court's directions. On 23 March 2026, the Principal Bench under Chairperson Ashok Bhushan, J. set aside the insolvency proceedings and imposed ₹10 lakh costs on the operational creditor. A short but consequential disposition.
The withdrawal mechanism under Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was Parliament's compromise between commercial pragmatism and statutory discipline — a structured route for settlement during CIRP. The NCLAT has, in a line of 2026 decisions including Gokul Aggarwal v. Bank of India, held that the route closes when liquidation commences. A digest of the doctrinal architecture, the line of cases, and what it means for the settlement-exit practice that had grown up around the section.
Valkya Editorial··10 min
Landmark JudgmentNational Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi
The NCLAT has held that the demand notice in Form B prescribed under the 2019 Rules cannot, by itself, constitute invocation of a personal guarantee. A Section 95 IBC application against a personal guarantor without prior contractual invocation is not maintainable. The NCLAT went further: it directed that the conduct of UCO Bank officials in filing the application without invocation be brought to the attention of the bank's Chairman. A digest of the doctrinal point, the procedural architecture, and what it means for personal-guarantor practice.