AP high court breather for Deccan Chronicle lenders

Court stays Company Law Board order that restrained lenders from continuing with legal proceedings

The Andhra Pradesh high court on Thursday stayed an order by the Company Law Board, which restrained the lenders of Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL) from continuing with any legal proceedings against the firm.

Justice Ranganathan gave these orders on a petition filed by India Bulls Housing Finance Limited challenging the CLB orders, according to India Bulls counsel Mahfooz Nazki. India Bulls, which had lent Rs 100 crore to the Deccan Chronicle management, had already approached various legal fora seeking recovery of its loan.

According to the petition filed by India Bull, the CLB passed an ex parte order on July 4 restraining the respondents (lenders including this petitioner) from taking any further steps or continuing with any of the civil proceedings initiated by the lenders. The order further restrained the lenders from disposing of any assets of the company.

India Bulls in its petition alleged that having failed to obtain any order of stay in a similar petition filed in the AP high court, P K Iyer, one of the promoters of Deccan Chronicle, clandestinely approached the CLB in his capacity of a shareholder of the company making false and misleading averments.

Nazki said the court was expected to decide on the other part of the CLB orders restraining lenders from disposing of the assets mortgaged by Deccan Chronicle promoters in the next hearing.