Govt Appoints Nine Judicial, Six Technical Members At NCLT

The government has made appointment of 15 judicial and technical members in total at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which is currently dealing with a shortage of judges.

The matters relating to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and companies’ law are adjudicated by NCLT. As of now nine judicial members and six technical members have been appointed to the NCLT, according to an official order. The appointment these members will stand for a period of five years from the date they assume their charge or till they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.

The judicial members include former Madras High Court Judge Justice (Retd) T Krishna Valli, former Allahabad High Court Judge Justice (Retd) Vikas Kunvar Srivastav, Senior Government Advocate at the Department of Legal Affairs Mahendra Khandelwal, CAT Judicial Member Bidisha Banerjee, advocates Praveen Gupta and Ashok Kumar Bhardwaj

Others are Retd District Judge Punjab Kuldip Kumar Kareer, Retd District Judge Gautam Budh Nagar Vishesh Sharma and District Court Judge in Commercial Court, Delhi Higher Judicial Service Sanjiv Jain. 

The technical members appointed are Chartered Accountant Prabhat Kumar, UCO Bank’s former Executive Director Charan Singh, former Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Member Anu Jagmohan Singh, Retd Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax Ashish Verma; former Director and Head of AML Compliance at Citi Bank India Madhu Sinha and former Secretary at the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying Atul Chaturvedi (IAS (Retd)), according to the order dated 5 November. 

In total the NCLT comprises of 28 benches along with a sanctioned strength of 63 members. It includes 31 each from the judicial and administrative sides along with its president, who heads the principal bench in New Delhi.

The NCLT President Chief Justice (Retd) Ramalingam Sudhakar said that although there have been various shortcomings such periodical reduction of members which is currently 28 out of 63, and infrastructure requiring improvement in metropolitan cities being Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, under the IBC, the scope of adjudication has been rewarding and result oriented.

In addition to this, the tribunal too is facing shortage of support staff which includes court masters, officers, assistant registrars and stenographers.