Lenders await fate of Piramal, 63 Moons Tech litigation in top court

Even as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) intensified its probe against the former promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL), its lenders are keenly awaiting the fate of an appeal filed by Piramal Capital & Housing Finance against DHFL and 63 Moons Technologies with regard to Rs 40,000 crore worth of assets of the firm’s fraud accounts.

Piramal had appealed against the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order directing DHFL’s lenders to reconsider their decision on the valuation of the financial firm’s fraud accounts.

“It’s not only DHFL and its lenders. The fate of future bankruptcy cases and recovery will also depend on the outcome of the Supreme Court’s (SC's) final order,” said a source close to the development.

According to the DHFL debt resolution plan, Piramal Capital was handed over the company's control by the lenders. But 63 Moons Technologies, which had a Rs 200-crore exposure to DHFL, had filed a petition in the NCLAT against the debt resolution plan of Piramal Capital, which ascribed a value of Rs 1 to Rs 40,000 crore worth of assets of DHFL’s fraud accounts.

Any recovery in future from these accounts will accrue to Piramal and not to the lenders, according to the petition filed in the apex court by 63 Moons.

In January this year, NCLAT had ordered the petition be considered by the Committee of Creditors (CoC). But this order was stayed by the SC in April, and the matter is pending at present.

Following the registration of a fresh case on Monday, the CBI officials on Wednesday carried out searches at 12 premises of real estate companies in Mumbai. The central agency booked DHFL, its former chairman Kapil Wadhawan, director Dheeraj Wadhawan and others for the bank fraud following a complaint from Union Bank of India. Both are already incarcerated in earlier cases.