Jamshedpur, Dec 22: Â The bench of judicial member Rohit Kapoor and technical member Balraj Joshi in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Kolkata heard petition filed by Tayo workers.
The hearing was held on the issues of reducing the voting rights of the workers, claims of Rs 190 Crore by the workers and increasing the voting rights of Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited by illegally constituting the committee of creditors by the resolution professional.
Advocate Akhilesh Srivastava on behalf of the workers told the court that the workers in their petition had initially claimed Rs 24 crore, which was accepted by the NCLT bench, but Vinita Aggarwal, the first resolution professional, reduced it to Rs 20 crore, so that the workers’ right of veto would go to the Committee of Creditors so that Tata Steel’s indirect control over the Committee of Creditors continues.
He further informed that the new resolution professional Shashi Agarwal, soon after his appointment, increased the claim of Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited to Rs 366 crore and increased the voting rights of Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited to more than 90% and reduced the voting rights of workers from 32% to 7% and thus almost showed the workers the way out of the Committee of Creditors.
He further informed that the claim of Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam has been shown by Tayo Company as Contingent Liabilities which is assessed under Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process Regulation 14 which has not been done by the Resolution Professional Shashi Agarwal and Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam to the Committee of Creditors fraudulently. Ltd.
He further said that the claim of the workers is 190 crores and it has been made under section 25O of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 which cannot be changed by the resolution professional and therefore the claim of the workers is not only legally justifiable but their right to voting in the Committee of Creditors.
The lawyer alleged that due to the forgery of the resolution professional, no good company has come to NCLT to acquire it as Tata wants to have possession of 350 acres of Tayo’s land and want to liquidate Tayo.
He further informed that resolution professional Shashi Agarwal has been working as an agent of Tata Steel and Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited till date.
Raising the issue of alleged lease of Tayo’s land, Akhilesh Srivastava told NCLT that this land is not a lease and claimed it as a government grant that was given by the Government of Bihar to Tata Steel in 1969.
He said the company lasted till 2016 and Tata Steel illegally shut down Tayo.
The next hearing in the case would be on January 20.