Asset Reconstruction Companies In India: High-Handedness, Judicial Reckoning, And Regulatory Reform

Anyone of us who have appeared before a Debt Recovery Tribunal, a High Court, or the NCLT in a Non-Performing Asset matter has, at some point, encountered an Asset Reconstruction Company on the other side of the record. They arrived with an ambitious mandate: to clean the Indian banking system's distressed debt backlog through professional, non-adjudicatory enforcement, free from the delays that frustrated bank-led recovery for decades. The Narasimham Committee I (1991) and Narasimham Committee...

IBC Permits Parallel CIRP Against Debtor & Guarantor For Same Debt : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday (February 26) observed that there's no bar under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to initiate simultaneous CIRP against the corporate debtor and guarantor for the same debt. The bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih endorsed the findings of BRS Ventures Investments Ltd. v. SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd. & Anr that "consistent with...

ESG And Competition Law In Cross-Border M&A: A Contemporary Shift In Corporate And Commercial Regulation

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) evaluations have been significantly altered due to the rise of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations. The integration of ESG considerations in M&A has scaled new height shaping global settlement and risk assessment. ESG factors are increasingly treated as inputs to and outcomes of competition analysis. They are no longer confined to voluntary commitments or investor reporting. To ensure merger clearances, the authorities are...

Rooh Afza To Be Classified As Fruit Drink/Processed Fruit Product And Taxed At 4% Under UP VAT Act : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today held that “Sharbat Rooh Afza” is classifiable as a “fruit drink / processed fruit product” under Entry 103 of Schedule II, Part A of the Uttar Pradesh Value Added Tax Act, 2008 and is taxable at 4 percent.A bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan set aside Allahabad High Court's judgment that had held that Rooh Afza has to be classified under...

Insolvency, Sovereignty and Spectrum: Locating IBC Within Constitutional Order

Beyond a Sectoral DisputeThe Supreme Court's recent decision in State Bank of India v. Union of India [2026 Livelaw (SC) 152] will inevitably be described as a telecom ruling. It is more than that. At its heart lies a question that goes to the architecture of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC): when a corporate debtor enters the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), what is the juridical character of the rights it holds, and which of those rights constitute part of the...

IBC | Defunct Scheme Of Arrangement Under Companies Act Cannot Stall Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 24) held that a defunct Scheme of Arrangement under the Companies Act cannot stall the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process proceedings under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran set aside the NCLAT's decision, which had kept in abeyance the CIRP initiated under Section 7 of IBC against...

Fixed-Term Appointments Made Through Due Process Are Not “Backdoor Entries”: Himachal Pradesh High Court

The Himachal Pradesh High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging the regularisation policy of Fixed Tenure Appointees in Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited, holding that appointments made through a transparent and competitive process could not be characterised as “backdoor entries” merely because they were initially for a fixed term.A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and...

Benami Act Attachment During CIRP Can't Be Challenged Before NCLT/NCLAT : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today upheld an NCLAT judgment that held that attachment under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988 (Benami Act) can be challenged only before authorities provided under that Act and not before the NCLT under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.A bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Atul Chandurkar dismissed an appeal against NCLAT judgment...

CCI v. Swapan Dey: Who Decides Exclusivity Or Exclusion?

When does the exercise of patent rights become an antitrust violation? The apex court is now poised to answer a question that remains at the intersection of “innovation in a healthy competitive market” and “market regulation.” Recently, in Competition Commission of India v. Swapan Dey & Another,[1] the Supreme Court (SC) has stepped into a core jurisdictional conflict to determine whether the Competition Commission of India (CCI), the chief national antitrust regulator in India, can...

Law Without Remedy: Unpaid Salaries In India's Online Work Economy

Salary theft in India's IT and online operational sector is no longer an exception. It has become a business model quiet, procedural, and legally sanitised.In India's fast-growing IT and online services ecosystem, non-payment of salary has become a disturbingly common experience. Employees are not just terminated; they are financially strangled. Performance bonuses are withheld without explanation, salaries for the last three to six months are stopped, and the employee is pushed into silence...

The Silent Capture Of Generic Terms

Indian trademark law insists that generic and descriptive terms must remain in the public domain, yet in practice, resource‑rich proprietors often succeed in fencing off such words through private litigation. In the absence of an institutional guardian of public interest, courts may, case by case, end up reinforcing monopolies over everyday language that the statute itself never intended to privatise. It is necessary that India now needs a dedicated public‑interest authority or structured...

Telecom Spectrum Community Resource, IBC Can't Determine Its Ownership & Control : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today held that the ownership and control of telecom spectrum cannot be determined by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), since it is a common good. A bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Atul Chandurkar held that the spectrum is a material resource of the community in the Constitutional sense. Hence, the spectrum must benefit the common good, so its control...