The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday approved Piramal Group’s bid for bankrupt-DHFL, subject to final judgments in the NCLAT and the Supreme Court.

The tribunal’s Mumbai-bench, chaired by H P Chaturvedi and Ravikumar Duraisamy, said the approval is subject to the final judgment from the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and the Supreme Court's judgment on Kapil Wadhawan in the matter.

In its order, NCLT asked Dewan Housing Finance Corporation’s (DHFL) Committee of Creditors (CoC) to consider giving more money to small fixed deposit holders under the approved resolution plan.

"We are not remanding the plan back to CoC, we respect their commercial wisdom," it said.

NCLT also rejected ousted DHFL promoter Wadhawan’s plea to get access to a copy of the resolution plan.

Piramal Capital & Housing has already received the nod from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for its Rs 34,250 crore bid to take over the stressed DHFL.

On 19 May, NCLT had directed lenders of DHFL to consider Wadhawan’s settlement proposal in the next ten days as it offered considerably more recovery to them than any other put on their plate.

On 25 May, NCLAT stayed this order as it heard separate applications filed by the lenders and the RBI-appointed administrator of DHFL. In its appeal, the administrator termed the NCLT order as “illegal and in breach of settled provisions of law”. The insolvency law bars the promoter or management of any bankrupt company from bidding to get it back.

In December, Wadhawan had written to the administrator reiterating his offer to fully settle the outstanding principal of Rs 91,158 crore to the creditors, including Rs 43,000 crore in the initial few years.

NCLT’s order came after both CoC and the RBI approved the Piramal Group’s proposal to acquire DHFL. The NCLT had to give its approval for closure of the process.

Following the NCLT order, the Piramal group had moved the appellate tribunal stating that “the impugned order throws open floodgates of litigation from all sundry … the adjudicating authority had no jurisdiction to entertain any application while ignoring the statutory timelines under Section 12A of the IBC”.

The bankers are reluctant to consider Wadhawan’s settlement offer because the account was declared “fraud” by them.