Pre-pack 86 orders, group insolvency 22, cross-border 9 — the thin edge of India's most-litigated commercial statute
This article is about the four areas of IBC that have been introduced (or floated, or contemplated) but have not produced volume. After eight years, they remain the thin edge of the Code.
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, in its first iteration, was a single-corporate-debtor, fully-judicial, onshore regime. Eight years on, the parts of the Code that depart from that — pre-pack (partly extrajudicial), group insolvency (multi-debtor), cross- border (offshore-aware), avoidance (claw-back) — together account for under a thousand distinct orders in this 25,106-order corpus.
| Framework | Orders | First year visible | 2024 orders |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-pack CIRP (Sec 54A–54P) | 86 | 2021 | 23 |
| Group insolvency | 22 | 2019 | 4 |
| Cross-border insolvency | 9 | 2017 | 1 |
| Avoidance transactions | 853 | (corpus-wide) | (mixed) |
The avoidance bucket has grown substantially after a one-time re-tagging pass (the corpus had previously tagged only 6 orders as AVOIDANCE; a re-scan identifying Sections 43, 45, 50 and 66 citations correctly tags 853).
Why has pre-pack CIRP barely scaled in three years?
The Pre-Packaged Insolvency Resolution Process (PPIRP) for MSMEs was introduced by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021 — effective 4 April 2021 — inserting Chapter III-A into the Code. It is, on paper, a substantial innovation:
- Eligibility: Corporate debtors classified as MSMEs that are not undergoing CIRP and have not undergone CIRP in the preceding three years.
- Process: The corporate debtor proposes a “base resolution plan” before filing the application. The plan is negotiated with the financial creditors. The pre-packaged process is filed with the AA already carrying a CoC-approved base plan, and proceeds through an accelerated 120-day timeline.
- Switch: A “Swiss challenge” mechanism allows competing resolution plans during the process — but the base plan has first-refusal-equivalent rights.
The idea: a faster, less acrimonious resolution route for smaller businesses, modelled on UK / US pre-packaged administrations.
The data, three and a half years on:
| Year | Pre-pack orders |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 10 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 35 |
| 2024 | 23 |
| Cumulative | 86 |
Eighty-six orders, across all of India’s MSME corporate debtors. By comparison, regular CIRP produces 2,500–3,500 orders a year. The pre-pack framework is, by any honest reading, under-used.
What does a recent pre-pack actually look like?
A small sample of recent cases:
- KVIR Towers Pvt. Ltd. — plan approved 12 Dec 2024 (NCLT)
- Kaveri Technobuild Pvt. Ltd. — order 3 Dec 2024 (NCLT)
- Getz Cables v. SBI — NCLAT appeal allowed, 21 Nov 2024
- Kethos Tiles Pvt. Ltd. — admitted 12 Nov 2024
- Jaldhara Properties v. Sudal Industries — NCLAT appeal allowed, 22 Jul 2024
The pattern: small companies, regional benches, plan-approved or admitted outcomes. The pre-pack mechanism, when used, appears to work — but it is being used by a tiny fraction of eligible MSMEs.
Why so little uptake?
The standard explanations:
- Awareness. MSMEs and their advisors are unfamiliar with the mechanism; the standard advice has been either out-of-court restructuring or (less commonly) regular CIRP.
- Promoter eligibility. Section 29A applies to pre-pack resolution applicants — the very promoters most likely to use a pre-pack are often barred from it.
- Bank reluctance. Financial creditors have been cautious about the base-plan-before-filing structure, preferring the more familiar CoC-led CIRP discovery.
- Lack of doctrine. Two SC orders in pre-pack across the entire corpus — there is no body of appellate doctrine to predict outcomes from.
Why is group insolvency still judge-made and discretionary?
The group insolvency framework — for situations where multiple related corporate debtors are in CIRP simultaneously and synergistic resolution would benefit creditors — is, in 2024, not in the statute. The IBBI has issued guidance notes; some NCLT benches have proceeded informally on a group basis (most famously in the Videocon Industries matter, where the NCLT Mumbai bench consolidated 13 group companies’ CIRPs in 2019). But the framework remains discretionary, judge-driven, and underdeveloped.
Twenty-two orders touch group-insolvency questions across all courts and eight years. Recent examples:
- Future Corporate Resources Pvt Ltd — plan approved 24 Sep 2024 (NCLT) — part of the Future Group resolution.
- Mist Direct Sales / Mist Avenue / Anand Infoedge — multiple related admissions 19 Jul 2024 (NCLT) — appears to be group-consolidated entities.
- Grand Venezia & Bhasin Infotech — admitted 4 Dec 2023 — group consolidation of two related real-estate entities.
- Mist Avenue v. Nitin Batra — NCLAT appeal dismissed 17 Nov 2023.
- Amtek Auto Limited — rejected 3 Aug 2023 — one of the largest attempted group resolutions, ultimately collapsed at the resolution applicant stage.
The data shows what the doctrine implies: group insolvency is happening, case by case, when the bench is willing. It has not become a routine procedural option.
The Bankruptcy Law Reforms Committee, in its 2018 sub-report, proposed a formal group-insolvency framework. The recommendation remains unenacted.
Why has India still not adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law?
The UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency, adopted in 1997 and adopted by 50+ jurisdictions worldwide, was proposed for India in 2018 by the Insolvency Law Committee. Sections 234 and 235 of the IBC contemplate cross-border arrangements — Section 234 by way of bilateral treaties, Section 235 by way of letters of request from the AA to foreign courts.
Neither section has been operationalised. India has not adopted the Model Law. India has not entered into bilateral cross-border insolvency treaties.
Nine orders carry the cross-border tag. They are:
- Mobilox Innovations v. Kirusa Software (SC, 21 Sep 2017, Appeal allowed) — tagged as cross-border because Kirusa was a US-based operational creditor seeking enforcement against an Indian corporate debtor. The substantive ruling is the Mobilox pre-existing-dispute doctrine.
- Jet Airways v. SBI (NCLAT, 26 Sep 2019, two orders, Disposed of) — the Dutch trustee’s intervention in Jet Airways’ CIRP. Eventually produced the SBI v. Jet Airways (India) Ltd. protocol for cooperation with the Dutch insolvency court — one of the first ad-hoc cross-border insolvency protocols in Indian IBC.
- Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd. v. Amit Gupta (SC, 8 Mar 2021, Disposed of) — power-purchase-agreement issues with a cross- border dimension.
- Nitin Jain Liquidator v. Enforcement Directorate (HC, 15 Dec 2021, Plan approved) — PMLA / cross-border attachment.
- State Bank of India v. Sudip Dutta (NCLT, 16 Jun 2022, admitted) — Ess Dee Aluminium Ltd., a corporate debtor with UK subsidiary entanglements.
- Giriraj Enterprises v. Regen Powertech (NCLAT, 31 Aug 2023, two orders, Appeal dismissed) — German receivable / cross-border question.
- Uphealth Holdings v. Dr. Syed Sabahat Azim (HC, 22 May 2024, Appeal dismissed) — US-based corporate debtor with Indian operational creditor.
That is the entire cross-border IBC docket: nine orders, eight years, four distinct fact patterns. India’s cross-border insolvency law is, in effect, judge-made and case-specific. The Jet Airways-Dutch-protocol approach has been discussed but not codified. Most multinational distress involving Indian debtors is, in practice, resolved through parallel proceedings in each jurisdiction, with informal coordination.
The Insolvency Law Committee’s 2018 recommendation to adopt the UNCITRAL Model Law remains, as of this corpus’s cutoff, unimplemented.
What was the avoidance subdomain hiding all along?
The IBC contains a sophisticated framework for avoidance transactions — preferential (Section 43), undervalued (Section 45), extortionate credit (Section 50), and fraudulent / wrongful trading (Section 66). The RP is required to examine the corporate debtor’s pre-CIRP transactions and, if any fit these categories, to apply to the AA to claw back the value.
The avoidance subdomain looked under-used in the corpus before — only 6 orders carried the AVOIDANCE tag. After a one-time re-tagging pass that flagged any order citing Sections 43/45/50/66, the count is now 853 orders.
| Section | Cases |
|---|---|
| 43 (preferential) | 373 |
| 45 (undervalued) | 216 |
| 50 (extortionate credit) | 161 |
| 66 (fraudulent / wrongful trading) | 542 |
Section 66 — fraudulent or wrongful trading — is the most-litigated avoidance provision. It allows the AA to order that persons responsible for wrongful business conduct contribute personally to the corporate debtor’s assets. It is the IBC’s parallel to common-law lifting-of-the-veil doctrine.
Avoidance was, until the re-tagging, the IBC’s quietest substantial sub-regime. With 853 orders now visible, it deserves a closer look in future issues.
What this article shows
The IBC has built an extensive frontier menu that has not, in volume terms, been used. Pre-pack has 86 orders. Group insolvency has 22. Cross-border has 9. Avoidance, the largest of the four, has 853 — substantial, but a small share of the corpus.
The three frameworks designed to widen the IBC’s footprint — to MSMEs (pre-pack), to corporate groups (group insolvency), and to multinational distress (cross-border) — have not, in eight years, gained traction.
The doctrinal cases that have animated these frontiers — Jet Airways’ Dutch trustee, Videocon’s NCLT consolidation, Amtek Auto’s attempted group resolution — are exceptions, not patterns. The next Lalit Kumar Jain-scale doctrinal expansion of IBC, if it comes, will probably be in one of these frontier areas. As of this corpus’s cutoff, it has not come.
Read next: The Court Case That Shut BYJU’s Escape Hatch — the third feature in this issue.
By the Numbers
The data behind this article. Every count traces back to a written order in the IBBI corpus.
Pre-Pack Orders by Year202335202423202218202110Group Insolvency Orders by Year202172023520244202232020220191Cross-Border Orders by Year201922021220232201712022120241
Cases Referenced
Every case cited in this article. PDFs link to the original order on ibbi.gov.in; case pages live in the Legal Wires verifier index.
- Approval of Resolution Plan - KVIR Towers — I.A. 34 & 1718-2024 In CP (IBPP) No.02-(PB)-2023 (2024-12-12) · View original PDF
- Kaveri Technobuild Pvt. Ltd. NCLT Orders — I.A. No. 2588-ND-2024 in CP IB NO. 722-(ND)-2023 (2024-12-03) · View original PDF
- Getz Cables vs. SBI & Ors. - NCLAT Order — Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No.1953 of 2024 (2024-11-21) · View original PDF
- Mudraksh Investfin Pvt. Ltd. vs. Gursev Singh: NCLT Orders — RCP IB-21/ND/2024 Old No- IB-422/ND/2024 (2024-11-14) · View original PDF
- Kethos Tiles Pvt Ltd: Interlocutory Application Orders (2024-11-12) · View original PDF
- Vikash Jain: IBBI Orders in NCLAT Appeal — Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 1173 of 2024 (2024-08-20) · View original PDF
- Vikash Jain, RP of Kethos Tiles: NCLAT Orders — Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 1173 & 1323 of 2024 (2024-08-20) · View original PDF
- Vivek Raheja vs. IBBI: High Court Orders — W.P.(C) 2894-2024 & CM Appl. 41888-2024 (2024-08-07) · View original PDF
- Shrinathji Business Ventures Pvt. Ltd. Orders — CP No. (IB)-161-7-JPR-2020 (2024-07-29) · View original PDF
- Jaldhara Properties vs. Sudal Industries: NCLAT Orders — Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 707 & 1420 of 2023 (2024-07-22) · View original PDF
- Uphealth Holdings vs. Dr. Syed Sabahat Azim: Orders — C.O. No. 241 of 2024 (2024-05-22) · View original PDF
- Giriraj Enterprises vs. Regen Powertech: NCLAT Orders — Company Appeal (AT) (CH) (Insolvency) Nos. 323, 328, 334, 335 & 340/2021 & 88, 96, 104 & 6/2022 (2023-08-31) · View original PDF
- Giriraj Enterprises vs. Regen Powertech: NCLAT Orders — Company Appeal (AT) (CH) (Insolvency) No. 323-2021 (2023-08-31) · View original PDF
- State Bank of India vs. Sudip Dutta: NCLT Orders — CP (IB) No. 54/KB/2021 (2022-06-16) · View original PDF
- Nitin Jain Liquidator vs. Enforcement Directorate Case (2021-12-15) · View original PDF
- Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd. Vs. Amit Gupta — Civil Appeal No. 9241 of 2019 (2021-03-08) · View original PDF
- Jet Airways vs. SBI: NCLAT Orders Review — Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 707 of 2019 (2019-09-26) · View original PDF
- Jet Airways vs. State Bank of India: NCLAT Orders — CA (AT) (Insolvency) No. 707 (2019-09-26) · View original PDF
- Mobilox Innovations vs. Kirusa Software: Supreme Court Orders — Civil Appeal No. 9405-2017 (2017-09-21) · View original PDF
- Future Corporate Resources Pvt Ltd: NCLT Orders — CP (IB) No.1111-MB-2022 (2024-09-24) · View original PDF
- Mist Direct Sales Pvt. Ltd. [IB-682/2021] NCLT Orders (2024-07-19) · View original PDF
- Anand Infoedge Pvt. Ltd. Orders in NCLT Case — IA 293 & 2497-2024 in IB-682-PB-2021 (2024-07-19) · View original PDF
- Mist Avenue Pvt Ltd [IB-682/2021] NCLT Orders (2024-07-19) · View original PDF
- Grand Venezia & Bhasin Infotech: NCLT Orders — Company Petition IB (IBC) No. 646-PB-2021 (2023-12-04) · View original PDF
- Mist Avenue Pvt. Ltd. vs. Nitin Batra: NCLAT Orders — & I.A. No. 463 of 2023 in Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 127 of 2023 (2023-11-17) · View original PDF
- Amtek Auto Limited: NCLT Orders Overview — IA Nos.170-2021 & 74-2022 in CP (IB) No.42-Chd-Hry-2017 (2023-08-03) · View original PDF
- Clarion Townships Pvt. Ltd. IB-410-(ND)-2020 Orders (2022-04-22) · View original PDF