Bankruptcy Code referred to joint committee of Parliament

The bill seeks to provide an easy exit option for insolvent and sick companies

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2015, which seeks to provide an easy exit option for insolvent and sick companies, was today referred to a 30-member joint committee of the Members of Parliament for further scrutiny.

The joint committee will submit its report by the last day of the first week of the Budget session, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while moving a motion in Lok Sabha.

The committee will have 10 members from Rajya Sabha and 20 from Lok Sabha.

While moving the bill for consideration and passage yesterday in the lower house, Jaitley had said he would consider sending the bill to the joint committee provided there was an agreement on the issue among the opposition parties.

Moving the resolution in the upper house of Parliament to refer the bill to the Joint Committee, Jaitley said the code aims at consolidating and amending "the laws relating to reorganisation and insolvency resolution of corporate persons, partnership firms and individuals in a time bound manner for maximisation of value of assets of such persons."

It also seeks to promote entrepreneurship, make available credit and balance the interest of all the stakeholders by altering the order of priority of payment of government dues. The code proposes to establish an Insolvency and Bankruptcy Fund to deal with the insolvency issues.

Later talking to reporters, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said "with joint committee's report in hand by the end of the first leg of the Budget session... Our expectation would be to get the Bankruptcy Bill passed (in the second leg of the budget session)".

Rajya Sabha members of the Committee are Ajay Sancheti, Bhupender Yadav (both BJP), Naresh Gujral (SAD), Anand Sharma, Bhalchandra Mungekar ( both Cong), Praful Patel (NCP), Ravi Prakash Verma (SP), K C Tyagi (JD-U), Sukhendu Sekhar Roy (Trinamool Congress) and Satish Chandra Misra (BSP).

The members from Lok Sabha include K C Venugopal (Cong), Sushmita Dev (Cong), Gopal Shetty, Subhash Chandra Baheria, Nishikant Dubey, Shivkumar Udasi, Anil Shirole, Abhishek Singh, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Sanjay Jaiswal, Jagdambika Pal and P P Chaudhary (all BJP).