Parliament passes amendments to insolvency law
New Delhi, March 12
With the Rajya Sabha giving its nod, Parliament today passed amendments to the insolvency law that will help ring-fence successful bidders of insolvent companies from risk of criminal proceedings for offences committed by previous promoters.
The Rajya Sabha passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill, 2020, by a voice vote today, after it was approved by the Lok Sabha on March 6. The Bill will now replace an ordinance after it gets a presidential stamp.
Replying to a short debate on the Bill, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said amendments were in sync with time and also adhere to a SC order in “letter and spirit”.
The minister said the need for amendment in the IBC arose because of “changing requirement” and “requirement of fine tuning” the law as several MPs wanted to know why the government was bringing in so many amendments to a new law.
Stressing that the government was “very responsive” and had continuously been talking to the industry, she assured the House that amendments to the IBC were not being “unthinkingly done”.
The IBC, which came into force in 2016, has already been amended thrice. She said the government was taking care of the interest of home buyers and the requirement of minimum number of home buyers in the IBC had been included to avoid “frivolous litigations”. — TNS
