AZB & Partners represented Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited before the Supreme Court

AZB & Partners successfully represented Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited (“SCB/Respondent”) before the Supreme Court in an appeal filed by the suspended director (“Appellant”) of RCI Industries & Technologies Ltd. (“RCI”) challenging the order of NCLAT upholding the initiation of CIRP under the IBC against RCI. The Supreme Court appeal inter alia, questioned the status of SCB as an ‘operational creditor’ for a debt which was assigned in a foreign jurisdiction, by way of an assignment agreement which was unstamped. In this case, section 36 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 was relied upon for dismissing the appeal. The Supreme Court, in the facts of this case, while dismissing the appeal and upholding the NCLAT Order has accorded finality to the interpretation of section 36 of the Stamp Act which effectively bars an objection to be raised at a later stage in relation to the stamping of an instrument which has been admitted into evidence by a court/tribunal. The AZB team comprised of Vatsala Rai, Partner and Sushrut Garg, Associate.