The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai has accepted the State Bank of India’s (SBI) application to initiate personal insolvency resolution proceedings against Rajkumar Nandlal Dhoot, promoter and co-owner of Videocon Group. This action follows a Rs 5,353-crore default by Videocon Industries Ltd, the group’s flagship company, for which Dhoot had served as a personal guarantor.
The tribunal has directed resolution professional Ashish Narayan to issue a public notice inviting claims from all creditors. The NCLT division bench, comprising judicial member VG Bisht and technical member Prabhat Kumar, confirmed that Videocon Industries had defaulted on its loan repayment obligations to SBI. Additionally, Rajkumar Dhoot was found to have defaulted on the personal guarantee provided for these loans.
The legal proceedings
Before the tribunal’s order, Dhoot, represented by his counsel Sandeep Ladda, contended that the mandatory demand notice had not been properly served to him. He argued that the email address used for the notice had long been deactivated and that the office address where the notice was sent had been sold with the banks’ consent prior to the notice date. He claimed that these issues rendered the petition untenable and called for its dismissal.
In response, the SBI asserted that all necessary documents, including the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC) demand notice and the company petition, had been duly served to the provided address of Dhoot.
Following the tribunal’s admission of SBI’s application, a moratorium has been imposed to prevent further prosecution against the personal guarantor. The resolution professional will now call for claims from creditors and prepare a list of claimants. Subsequently, a repayment plan will be formulated with the resolution professional, presented to the committee of creditors, and submitted for final approval once endorsed.
This follows Videocon Industries’ admission under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) on June 6, 2018, in an application filed by SBI. The company, promoted by Rajkumar and his brother Venugopal Dhoot, has acknowledged claims exceeding Rs 61,770 crore from financial creditors.
