National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s Judicial Member Rakesh Kumar has tendered his resignation in the wake of Supreme Court taking strong exception to his conduct of defying the apex court’s order in a case relating to Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Finolex Cables. 

Kumar’s decision to step down from his post was conveyed to the CJI Y V Chandrachud led Bench by his Counsel Senior Advocate P S Patwalia here on Monday. 

A Bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of Kumar’s resignation and closed the matter against Justice Kumar and NCLAT Technical Member Alok Srivastava, who tendered an unconditional apology. 

“We are of the view that there was an attempt to defy the orders of this Court and censure the member. However, we would be resting the matter here”, the apex court said. 

The Supreme Court on Monday noted that the video footage of the NCLAT hearing on October 13 clearly showed that the NCLAT Bench refused to defer pronouncement of its order despite clear directions to that effect from the apex court. 

The NCLAT had earlier passed an order directing status quo on the results of the AGM till they adjudicate on the dispute between cousins Deepak Chabria and Prakash Chabria in the Finolex cables case. The apex court had however set aside this order. 

The Supreme Court had on October 18 issued notices to Rakesh Kumar and Alok Srivastava of the NCLAT to show cause for not initiating contempt action against them for delivering a judgement on October 16 defying an interim order passed by the apex court. 

NCLAT Bench contended that the judgement was pronounced on October 13 since the order of the Supreme Court (which was passed on the same day earlier) was neither officially communicated nor brought on record. This stance however was not accepted by the SC. 

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW