In CoC of Essar Steel India Ltd v Satish Kumar Gupta & Ors 2019 INSC 1184, the Supreme Court held that the IBC’s prescription that the insolvency process shall be ‘mandatorily’ completed within 330 days was an interference with a citizen’s fundamental right to non-arbitrary treatment under Article 14 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court’s reason was:
The Supreme Court relied on various precedents and struck down the ‘mandatorily’ holding it to be violative of Article 14 and Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution. And added that if NCLT cannot take up a litigant’s case for no fault of the latter, then it shouldn’t suffer.