Sick units Bill passed

The Bill to repeal the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provisions) Act 1985, was passed by the Parliament yesterday - replacing the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

All the pending and abated cases will be transferred now to NCLT. Opposition members in the Rajya Sabha argued the NCLT would consider all the cases before BIFR.

At present, BIFR has 4,700 cases before it and 1,258 cases had been dismissed as non- maintainable as their net worth had not been eroded to the extent of 50 per cent. 1,200 companies had been recommended for winding up. 257 cases were under review 300 had been revised.

Singh said the NCLT will register fresh cases free of charge and reference to the NCLT would be mandatory is the net worth of the company gone sick had been eroded upto 50 per cent.

TDP leader C Ramachandriah said there should be no lingering investment in sick industries. The slow pace of decisions in BIFR was the biggest problem and he hoped the NCLT would speed up hearings. RP Goenka (Congress) said that demerger should be an option - if a sick company merges into a profite-making one, it will restart, whether the public sector or the private, the government should make efforts to restart it.