Nearly a decade after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) transformed India’s creditor-debtor landscape, attention is shifting from statutory design to institutional capacity. While the Code altered lending behaviour, recovery expectations, and the culture of corporate distress resolution, its effectiveness is now being constrained by the forum that administers it — the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The question confronting policymakers is no longer whether the IBC is sound in principle, but whether the current adjudicatory architecture can deliver on its promise of speed and certainty.
How the NCLT’s dual mandate took shape
The National Company Law Tribunal was originally envisaged under the Companies Act, 2013 as a…