Tribunal twist: NCLT to hear Chandra plan again, this time with a bigger bench

Hours after an appeals court agreed to hear aggrieved lenders in the Subhash Chandra loan repayment case, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLAT) formed a new five-member special bench to reconsider the Zee Group's founder's repayment plan it approved last week. The Delhi bench of NCLT said its previous three-member bench which approved the plan could not agree on how it would operate.

The five-member bench of NCLT president Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal; judicial members Bachu Venkat Balaram Das and Mahendra Khandelwal Das; and technical members Atul Chaturvedi and Ravindra Chaturvedi, will hear the matter on Tuesday.

Earlier on Monday, creditors LIC Housing Finance, HDFC Bank and Union Bank of India had moved an urgent petition before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against NCLT’s Friday order.

The NCLT clarified that there was no majority view on Chandra’s repayment plan. One member had favoured applying the repayment plan only to creditors who supported it, while allowing dissenting banks and financial institutions to pursue separate recovery proceedings. Another member held that the plan should apply to all creditors, including those who opposed it. The tribunal said the two views had different consequences for the rights of dissenting creditors.

“All said and done, no majority view has emerged in the matter. In the wake, no order can be passed at this stage. Resultantly, we have no option but to make fresh reference to Hon’ble President in terms of the provisions of Section 419(5) of the Code,” the NCLT said.

Contested plan

The latest twist comes days after the tribunal had approved Chandra’s repayment plan under which he would pay ₹6.5 crore. Of this, ₹6.25 crore would go towards creditors, while ₹25 lakh would be used to meet insolvency process costs.

Mint first reported that Nilesh Sharma, who was included as the third member by the NCLT president in February 2026, had approved the repayment plan on 25 August.

The plan ran into opposition, with HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, RBL Bank and Union Bank of India voting against it. However, the plan received 80.81% support from creditors by value.

The case concerns Chandra’s liability as a personal guarantor for loans taken by several Essel and Zee-linked companies.

Government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told earlier Mint that the case should not be understood as Chandra personally having taken loans worth thousands of crores of rupees. The insolvency proceedings were initiated against him because he had provided personal guarantees for loans taken by group companies.

According to the officials, about ₹2,574 crore of the claims relate to loans for which Chandra had given personal guarantees when the loans were originally taken. Most of his other guarantees were provided later as additional security.

The dispute over the repayment plan centres on whether creditors that opposed the proposal should also be bound by it.

Sharma, while approving the plan, had held that creditors had participated in the process and that no sufficient prejudice had been established. He also held that the tribunal should not substitute its own commercial assessment for the decision taken by the required majority of creditors.

The latest NCLT clarification, however, means that there is currently no final majority order on the repayment plan. The issue will now be considered by the five-member special bench, while creditors have also approached the NCLAT.