The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has set aside an order of the Adjudicating Authority (NCLT, Kolkata) that had interfered with a concluded liquidation e-auction of the assets of a corporate debtor, holding that the Adjudicating Authority was not entitled to disturb a duly conducted public auction merely because a higher offer was received after the auction had already closed.
The liquidator had first fixed a reserve price of roughly eighty crore rupees for the assets and, receiving no qualifying bid, conducted a second e-auction at a reduced reserve price of roughly sixty-eight crore rupees. Maithan Alloys Limited emerged as the successful bidder at that reduced price and deposited the twenty-five percent earnest money required under the auction terms. The NCLT at Kolkata subsequently entertained a challenge that sought to reopen the process on the basis that a materially higher offer had since emerged, and directed that the process be revisited.
On appeal, the NCLAT held that the auction had not been challenged on grounds of fraud, collusion or material irregularity in the conduct of the process itself, and that the auction terms contained no provision allowing a successful bidder's acceptance to be undone, or the process reopened, simply because a better price was offered afterward. The Appellate Tribunal held that allowing a concluded auction to be reopened on this basis would undermine the finality and sanctity that public auctions in liquidation are meant to carry, and would discourage genuine bidders from participating in IBC liquidation sales at the price and on the terms actually advertised.
Readers should note that trade and legal commentary on this specific order, given its very recent date, remains limited to case digests rather than a widely syndicated full-text report at the time of writing; the broad holding is corroborated across more than one commentary source, but the precise bench, date and final directions should be confirmed against the NCLAT's own record.