Using Data to Understanding Institutional Resilience of the National Company Law Tribunals

As India builds systems and structures to safeguard its fostering economic activities, it is pertinent to identify and address structural and systemic bottlenecks for ensuring smooth operations and efficacy of such structures and safeguards.

Considering the object of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) and the promptness of systems required to address admissions of corporates for ensuring their swift resolution and therefore, the larger economic interest of the country, it is important to consider the infrastructure and the tribunal’s capacities to dispose cases timely.

Data: Cases pending for numbering

As per the data released by NCLT, cases (including applications, petitions, additional documents) at the stage of scrutiny before 7 of the 15 benches across the country have been pending in the following manner as on 25^th August 2025:

The no. of days these cases have been pending is less than 10 in all jurisdictions except in Mumbai, where cases have been pending for numbering for over 45 days. It is pertinent to note that other benches across the country had no pending cases before the scrutiny clerk as on 25^th August 2025.

Data: Disposal

As on 31^st March 2025, total of 30,745 cases with amounts of Rs. 13,93,902.35 crore have been resolved. Section wise breakdown of resolved cases is as follows:

Amounts concerning such admissions in section 7 are Rs. 5,76,494.96 crores; Section 9 (including transfer from high court) is Rs. 4,68,432.28 crores, and Section 10 is Rs. 3,48,975.10 crores. However, data regarding the corresponding amounts in debt for the period of the data presented has not been made available.

Data specific to Mumbai suggests that 60% of cases are disposed within 3 years of filing. The dataset which made the finding, also found that while over 56% of cases only had their first hearing after 2 months of filing, 90% of the cases filed were heard for the first time within 6 months of filing. The dataset considers 7346 IBC cases filed before the Mumbai Bench of NCLT between January 2022 and December 2024. However, the dataset contains no specific information regarding the nature of these cases, i.e. sections, petitions, applications, etc.

Resolutions:

Data from two consecutive financial years depict the rate of admissions for a specific year against the rate of resolutions:

The total amount of recovery in in FY 2024-2025 and FY 2023-2024 were Rs. 67,176 crores and Rs. 47,206 crores, respectively. Since 2017-2025 Rs. 4,43,099 have been approved in 1288 resolutions plans.

Data: Average time taken for Resolution

According to reports basis the data of the IBBI, the average time taken for resolution of a company admitted into CIRP was 850 days in FY 2024- 2025, and 716 days in FY 2023-2024 which was higher than the average no. of days for such resolution in 2022-2023, i.e. 654 days. While the time taken for Resolution has seen significant increase over the years, the number of admissions has gradually reduced in the following manner:

Therefore, from the information made available, it is evident that there is significant pendency before the registry in listing and first hearing of cases, thereby automatically delaying the resolution of corporates. Over the years, the delay in resolution has also seen a gradual increase, as has been demonstrated hereinabove. While businesses are generally doing well over these years, the insolvency systems continue to decrease in their efficiency.

Therefore, there is an evident, urgent need for addressing systemic and structural issues for a more effective and efficient insolvency framework.

Authored by Shruti Singhi, Lawyer and Author at the Society for Impact and Policy Research