Former SC judge Justice Ashok Bhushan takes charge as NCLAT Chairperson

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Ashok Bhushan on Monday took over as the chairperson of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.

After taking the oath of office on Monday, Justice Bhushan was scheduled to preside over 10 matters that were listed before a three-member NCLAT bench headed by the chairperson of the appellate tribunal.

NCLAT has got a permanent head after a gap of almost 20 months following the retirement of its first Chairperson Justice S J Mukhopadhaya.

Last Month, the Appointments Committee of Cabinet had approved Justice Bhushan's name as NCLAT Chairperson for a tenure of four years.

Justice Mukhopadhaya retired on March 14, 2020, and since then NCLAT had been functioning with Acting Chairpersons.

In the last 20 months, NCLAT had three Acting Chairpersons, with two of them getting several extensions.

Justice Bhushan had retired from the Supreme Court on July 4, where he had led the bench that was monitoring the COVID-19 management and relief throughout the pandemic days.

He was also a part of the five-judge bench that had delivered the verdict in the Ayodhya case.

Prior to that, Justice Bhushan was the Chief Justice of High Court of Kerala. He was elevated as permanent Judge of the Allahabad High Court on April 24, 2001.

Presently, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and NCLAT, like other judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, are conducting virtual hearing of cases.

NCLAT has been constituted under Section 410 of the Companies Act, 2013 for hearing appeals against the orders of NCLT.

It has two benches one principal bench at New Delhi and the other in Chennai. It is also the appellate tribunal to hear and dispose of appeals against orders passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India.