Eight years of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code jurisprudence, in one statistical portrait
The IBC at a glance — eight years of orders, from the first admissions in 2017 to the corpus cut-off at the end of 2024.
How big is the corpus?
| Total orders, 2017–2024 | 25,106 |
| Forums covered | 10 |
| Cases tagged as landmark | 886 |
Where does the work happen?
| Forum | Orders | Share |
|---|---|---|
| NCLT | 18,971 | 75.6% |
| NCLAT | 4,327 | 17.2% |
| Supreme Court | 643 | 2.6% |
| High Courts | 413 | 1.6% |
| IBBI Disciplinary Committee | 300 | 1.2% |
| IBBI RTI Appeals | 275 | 1.1% |
| IPA / RVO disciplinary | 67 | 0.3% |
| Other courts | 52 | 0.2% |
| IBBI Administrative | 48 | 0.2% |
| DRT | 10 | <0.1% |
Three out of every four orders in the corpus are written by an NCLT bench. IBBI’s quasi-judicial work — long aggregated under a single “IBBI Disciplinary Committee” tag in older reports — has been split into three actual streams here: disciplinary proceedings against insolvency professionals (300), first-appellate RTI rulings (275), and administrative orders (48).
The forum-wise concentration is the IBC’s single most-defining structural fact, and is the subject of Where the IBC Actually Lives.
What does the year-on-year curve look like?
| Year | Orders |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 1,082 |
| 2018 | 2,173 |
| 2019 | 4,412 |
| 2020 | 2,771 (Section 10A pandemic freeze, June 2020 – March 2021) |
| 2021 | 3,125 |
| 2022 | 4,048 |
| 2023 | 4,536 (peak) |
| 2024 | 2,935 (partial year in pipeline) |
The 2019 peak captured the Essar Steel and Innoventive follow-on year. The 2023 peak captured the personal-guarantor wave that Lalit Kumar Jain (May 2021) opened up.
What actually happens to a case?
| Outcome | Orders | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Admitted | 6,206 | CIRP or PG proceedings begin |
| Disposed of | 5,842 | Generic disposal — substantive outcome in body |
| Appeal allowed | 2,825 | Appellate relief granted |
| Appeal dismissed | 2,041 | Lower order upheld |
| Plan approved | 1,665 | Resolution plan approved under Section 31 |
| Dismissed | 1,506 | Application rejected |
| Withdrawn | 1,268 | Section 12A withdrawal or pre-admission settlement |
| Liquidation ordered | 1,139 | Section 33 liquidation |
| Rejected | 1,007 | Application not entertained |
| Partly allowed | 266 | Mixed relief |
| Adjourned | 67 | Procedural (mostly SC docket) |
| Notice issued | 61 | Procedural — SLP admission stage |
| Warning | 29 | IBBI DC sanction |
| Monetary penalty | 22 | IBBI DC sanction |
| Procedural | 14 | Other procedural |
| Suspension | 9 | IBBI DC sanction |
| Tagged with other matter | 8 | Procedural |
| Registration withdrawn | 4 | IBBI DC sanction |
| Debarment | 1 | The strongest IBBI DC sanction, imposed once in eight years |
The plans-to-liquidations ratio across the eight years is 1.46 to 1. The Code’s resolution preference is visible in the data — just barely.
What does a CoC actually vote, when it votes?
The corpus now contains 587 CoC voting percentages captured by the AI cleanup pass. Across them:
| Average voting share in favour | 86.3% |
| Statutory minimum (Section 30(4)) | 66% |
| Lowest captured | 0.01% (orders where the plan got almost no support) |
| Highest captured | 100% (unanimous) |
A reader will notice that the average is comfortably above the 66% statutory threshold but with a meaningful gap to 100%. Translation: when a CoC approves a plan, it does so with a real majority but not without dissent. Whether that gap represents healthy negotiation or quiet capitulation is one of the harder questions Chapter 5 takes up through the Essar Steel doctrine.
Which provisions anchor the Code?
| Section | Cases | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | 7,776 | Operational creditor application |
| 7 | 7,509 | Financial creditor application |
| 14 | 6,471 | Moratorium |
| 33 | 3,222 | Initiation of liquidation |
| 31 | 3,168 | Approval of resolution plan |
| 8 | 2,434 | Operational creditor demand notice |
| 13 | 2,242 | Public announcement of CIRP |
| 60(5) | 2,159 | NCLT exclusive jurisdiction |
| 15 | 2,109 | Public announcement |
| 17 | 1,486 | RP takes over management |
| 12A | 1,373 | Withdrawal of CIRP |
| 20 | 1,331 | RP’s preservation duty |
| 53 | 1,329 | Liquidation distribution waterfall |
| 19 | 1,318 | Co-operation with the RP |
| 29A | 1,176 | Promoter ineligibility |
Five provisions — 7, 9, 14, 31, 33 — together account for the spine of the Code. Add 12A (the withdrawal door — covered in The BYJU’s marquee) and 29A (the promoter ineligibility bar — covered in The Promoter Bar That Reshaped Resolution), both 2018-amendment additions, and the picture is largely complete.
Which subdomains carry the volume?
| Subdomain | Orders |
|---|---|
| CIRP | 20,314 |
| Liquidation | 9,836 |
| Mediation | 6,121 |
| Insolvency Professional | 3,441 |
| General | 3,344 |
| Disciplinary | 2,331 |
| Valuation | 2,184 |
| Information Utility | 1,585 |
| Personal Guarantor | 1,492 |
| Avoidance | 853 |
| Claims | 615 |
| Voluntary liquidation | 604 |
| Committee of Creditors | 456 |
| IPA | 281 |
| Resolution Plan | 165 |
Orders carry multiple tags — the totals exceed 25,106.
CIRP appears in 81% of orders. The “Avoidance” subdomain — covering preferential, undervalued, fraudulent, and extortionate transactions under Sections 43/45/50/66 — was 6 orders in the original corpus because of a tagging bug; it is now correctly 853 orders after the cleanup.
Five things this poster says
- The IBC is an NCLT statute. 75.6% of all orders come from a single forum.
- 2019 and 2023 are the peak years. Pandemic suppression between them makes the dip sharper than it would otherwise appear.
- Section 9 (operational creditors) files marginally more than Section 7 (financial creditors), but financial creditors are 60% more likely to walk out with a resolution plan. See Two Doors, Two Outcomes.
- Resolution beats liquidation, narrowly: 1,665 plans against 1,139 liquidations — 1.46 to 1.
- CoC commercial wisdom, in numbers: when a CoC approves a plan, the average voting share is 86.3% — above the 66% statutory threshold but with a meaningful 14-point gap to unanimity.
Read next: How a CIRP Actually Works — one real order, traced end to end.
By the Numbers
The data behind this article. Every count traces back to a written order in the IBBI corpus.
Orders by CourtNCLT18,971NCLAT4,327SC643IBBI_DC623HC413IPA_RVO67OTHER_COURT52DRT10Orders by Year20234,53620194,41220224,04820213,12520242,93520202,77120182,17320171,082Orders by Outcomeadmitted6,210disposed_off5,832appeal_allowed2,832appeal_dismissed2,041plan_approved1,681dismissed1,503withdrawn1,268liquidation_ordered1,148rejected1,005partly_allowed268set_aside179upheld83plan_rejected29remanded27Orders by SubdomainCIRP20,314LIQUIDATION9,836MEDIATION6,121IP3,441GENERAL3,344DISCIPLINARY2,331VALUATION2,184IU1,585PERSONAL_GUARANTOR1,473CLAIMS615VOLUNTARY_LIQ604COC456IPA281RESOLUTION PLAN165OTHER92Most-cited IBC Provisions96,39476,326145,033312,705332,60182,06460(5)2,037131,780151,395531,24912A1,237171,20529A1,137611,132521,023