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SREI Multiple Asset Investment Trust Vision India Fund vs. Deccan Chronicle Marketeers & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 251Decided 17 Mar 2023
Civil Appeal No. 1706 of 2023
Ajay Rastogi · Bela M. Trivedi

Background

SREI Multiple Asset Investment Trust Vision India Fund was the successful resolution applicant for Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd. (publisher of "Deccan Chronicle" and "Andhra Bhoomi"), which had gone through insolvency proceedings. Its Resolution Plan, approved by 81.39% of the Committee of Creditors and conditionally by the NCLT, gave it a "perpetual exclusive right to use" the company's brand names, but did not address who actually owned the trademarks. While disposing of a separate pending application, the NCLT went further and declared that the trademarks belonged outright to the corporate debtor: a declaration the NCLAT later struck down as an unauthorized alteration of the approved plan.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the NCLAT. It held that once a Resolution Plan is approved by the CoC's commercial wisdom and by the adjudicating authority, it cannot later be modified or added to: an adjudicating authority acting on a separate application cannot expand the plan's actual terms (an exclusive right to use brands) into something the plan never granted (ownership of the trademarks). Relying on its earlier ruling in Ebix Singapore v. Committee of Creditors of Educomp Solutions, the Court reiterated that unregulated post-approval modifications undermine the integrity and timelines of the insolvency process. The appeal, along with two connected appeals that had become infructuous or were rightly dismissed below, was accordingly dismissed with no costs.

Lesson Learnt

Once a resolution plan is approved in an insolvency proceeding, its terms are fixed. Courts and tribunals cannot expand or alter those terms afterward, even to grant a seemingly related benefit like trademark ownership, if the plan itself only conferred a narrower right (such as a right to use).

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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