Chandigarh, July 23, 2017: The advocates and other professionals appearing before Chandigarh Bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) have formed a separate Bar Association.
Its first executive has elected advocate Dewan Singh Sharma as its president, Ms Ranjana Shahi, advocate as vice-president and Dr Rajansh Thukral as general secretary.
Diwan Singh Sharma, an ex-banker, practicing advocate since 2001 has also earlier been the President of the DRT, Chandigarh Bar Association.
Ms.Ranjana Shahi, vice-president is the standing Senior Panel counsel to Government of India since 1999, and Senior Standing counsel of Enforcement directorate and Central Excise and Customs. She was also elected the Municipal Corporator in the very first year of its inception.
Dr. Thukral has experience of over 30 years dealing with corporate matters and is presently practicing only at NCLT since its inception in 2016. Other members of the executive committee are Mr. Nitina Jain, Advocate is the Joint Secretary, Mr. Sachin Jain, Advocate is the Treasurer, Dr. Ashwinie Kumar Bansal, Advocate, Sh. Ashwani Gupta, Chartered Accountant, Sh. Ajay Arora, Company Secretary and Dr. Vimal Aggarwal, Cost Accountant are the Executive Members.
Dr Thukral told that it has been set up to promote and strengthen the Advocates, Company Secretaries, Chartered Accountants and Cost Accountants practicing at National Company Law, Bench at Chandigarh.
The Central Government constituted National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under section 408 of the Companies Act, 2013 and came into being w.e.f. 01.06.2016 and in the first phase 10 benches have been set up.
One of the benches is situated at Corporate Bhawan Sector 27, Chandigarh. Justice M.M Kumar, is the Chairperson of the Tribunal and Justice R.P. Nagrath is the judicial member of NCLT, Chandigarh bench.
NCLT is the adjudicating authority for all matters, both litigative and procedural, under the Companies Act, 2013 as well as Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. This tribunal has assumed great importance as all matters of corporates having their registered offices in the UT/states of Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir come under the jurisdiction of NCLT Chandigarh.
Matters like Corporate Insolvency Resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 at the behest of Financial Creditors, Operational Creditors or the Corporate Debtor itself are adjudicated by this Tribunal. Apart from this several matters relating to Amalgamation, demerger, reduction of capital, oppression and mismanagement, compounding of several offences etc. under the Companies Act, 2013 are adjudicated by the Tribunal and it has assumed great importance during a short time of its existence as the jurisdiction of Hon’ble Punjab and Haryana High court under the Companies Act, 1956 now stands vested in NCLT under the new Act.
At NCLT, advocates, Practicing Chartered Accountants, Company Secretaries and cost accountants are also eligible to represent the cases of their clients and as such a good activity of these professionals is visible at the Corporate Bhawan.
The new era of NCLT calls for lot of specialised training, skill and knowledge in the procedural and litigative matters under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 as also Companies Act, 2013. Some of the senior professionals have come forward to promote NCLT (Chandigarh) Bar Association with the objective to disseminate the knowledge and inculcate skill among the professionals so that they can create an impeccable professional image at NCLT.