'Where are the members?' NCLT on Bhushan Steel resolution review

The Supreme Court’s unprecedented move to scrap JSW Steel’s ₹19,700-crore resolution plan for Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd (BPSL) and order its liquidation has shifted the burden back onto the already-understaffed National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which must now hear the case again.

Understaffing at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) emerged as a key concern on Wednesday during a hearing on the BPSL case. NCLT president Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar raised doubts about the tribunal's capacity to revisit such a complex, large bankruptcy case resolved six years ago, given its limited resources.

Also read | Bankers, lawyers in a tizzy after SC scraps JSW Steel’s Bhushan buy

“The entire matter has come back to us lock, stock, and barrel,” Justice Sudhakar said.

“So many issues are happening in the tribunal every day. The number of benches needs to be increased. If you want to have valuable judicial time with this pressure, it’s very difficult for any member to do that effectively. Even if I have to check a small application filed with all its necessary safeguards, I need more time," he said.

"For example,  this Bhushan Steel case, I want a special bench just for this. These interlocutory applications (IAs) need to be adjudicated by a special bench, and that takes time."Where are the members?" the NCLT president asked.

Stretched thin

Justice Sudhakar noted that the existing members are already stretched thin, and that he has been repeatedly pressing the government and even parliament to expand the tribunal’s strength.

"This is what I’ve been telling parliament. Please double the number of members. At least this issue can't continue as it is."

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“I literally push my members to achieve what we’ve managed so far.”

His remarks came during the hearing at NCLT Delhi Principal Bench, where several BPSL creditors have begun filing fresh claims following the Supreme Court’s 2 May ruling quashing the resolution.

The NCLT president also pointed to the scale of work handled by NCLT in recent years. “We have cleared more and more cases every year — 179,270,285 last year alone. The amount is so huge.. And we did that with what? Only 60% of our sanctioned strength. There was no special bench for IBC — it was only for company matters. Who appreciates that?” he asked.

Currently, the NCLT has a sanctioned strength of 63 members across 16 benches nationwide.

SC's action

The Supreme Court on 2 May quashed JSW Steel’s resolution plan for Bhushan Power & Steel and directed the NCLT to initiate liquidation proceedings—sending the case back to the tribunal, even though the original resolution had been approved by both the NCLT and the Committee of Creditors in 2019.

Also read | NCLT defers Bhushan Power & Steel insolvency matter to 30 May

The Union government in March 2025 assigned benches to 21 of the 24 newly-appointed judicial and technical members of the NCLT. These appointments followed persistent calls from the NCLT Bar Association and sharp criticism from the Supreme Court in a November 2024 ruling over large vacancies in the tribunal.

India’s Economic Survey released in February 2025 highlighted serious delays in the resolution of distressed assets under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), with the average Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) taking 582 days and liquidation processes stretching to an average of 499 days.

Also read | Mint Explainer: Why the Bhushan Power judgment stunned the insolvency ecosystem