Jaypee: Creditors defer voting on Suraksha's offer; may consider revised bid from NBCC

New Delhi: Jaypee Infratech's financial creditors on Monday deferred the voting process on Suraksha group's offer to acquire the realty firm and will decide later this week whether bids of Suraksha group as well as NBCC should be considered again.

Days after NBCC strongly objected to the Committee of Creditors (CoC) rejecting its offer and also questioned the jurisdiction of Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) Anuj Jain, the creditors held a meeting to discuss NBCC's addendum to its existing offer.

The CoC, at its meeting on Monday, decided to conduct voting on May 27-28 on whether offers from both contenders — Suraksha group and NBCC — should be allowed to submit their resolution plans for Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL), which went into insolvency proceedings in 2017.

As per earlier schedule, the voting process on Suraksha group's bid was to commence from noon on Monday (May 24) and end at 5 pm on May 27.

According to a regulatory filing, the CoC has deferred the voting process on Suraksha group's bid. The CoC has also decided "to put to vote from May 27 to May 28 - item of allowing further time to both resolution applicants for submitting final resolution plan; and other items", as per the filing submitted by IRP Anuj Jain to stock exchanges. However, no specific reason was given by Jain for deferment of voting process on Suraksha group's offer.

Sources said there was no unanimity among lenders on whether NBCC bid should be considered at this stage. Therefore, it was decided to take views of the lenders and homebuyers through voting whether further extension should be given to both the parties, they added.

On Sunday, Suraksha Group warned of legal action against lenders as well as the IRP if there are any delays and change in the voting process already approved on its NBCC on Saturday questioned the jurisdiction of the IRP in submitting that the offer was non-compliant with the insolvency law and demanded that it should be put to vote.

At its meeting on May 20, the CoC -- which includes representatives of 13 banks and around 20,000 homebuyers -- rejected NBCC offer and that voting process on Suraksha group's final bid will start on Monday. Objecting to its bid being declared as non-compliant with certain provisions of the insolvency law, NBCC, on Saturday, shot off a strongly-worded letter to Jain and also submitted a 14-page addendum to its final bid to clarify concerns raised on treatment of dissenting creditors.