NCLT withdraws work from Technical Member of Chandigarh Bench amid complaints

The Joint Registrar of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) recently issued an order withdrawing work from Umesh Kumar Shukla, a Technical Member of the NCLT's Chandigarh Bench, after complaints from stakeholders..The order dated January 4 order says that work assigned to Shukla, namely the hearing of cases before Courts I and II of the NCLT, Chandigarh, will be withdrawn with effect from January 6, 2025."Based on incidents past and present and issues raised by NCLT stakeholders in their repeated representations, the report of HOD, on a preliminary review of the above representations and the report on the incidents, keeping in mind the interest of the Institution and to ensure proper working of the NCLT Chandigarh Bench, the Competent Authority on the administrative side has directed ... The work assigned to Shri. Umesh Kumar Shukla Member (T), NCLT Chandigarh Bench, hearing of cases in Court I & II stands withdrawn until further orders," the order said. .As part of the order, Shukla has also been instructed to complete and pronounce decisions in all reserved matters within a period of ten days from the issuance of the directive. The reserved cases, which have already been heard, must be pronounced without further listing for clarifications, the directive added. Shukla is required to carry out this process in consultation with the Judicial Member to avoid any delays..The responsibility of hearing cases before Courts I and II of the Chandigarh Bench have been reassigned to Harnam Singh Thakur (Judicial Member) and Ashish Verma (Technical Member). Verma, currently stationed at the Allahabad Bench, will participate in the proceedings via video conferencing.The restructured schedule allows Thakur and Verma to handle Chandigarh Bench cases from Monday to Wednesday, while Allahabad Bench cases will be managed by Verma and Praveen Gupta (Judicial Member) on Thursdays and Fridays..Chandigarh Member Shukla had earlier drawn controversy when he refused to attend the tribunal in April 2024, which led the President of the NCLT to reconstitute the concerned Bench temporarily. Before that, the NCLT President in February 2024 had to withdraw all cases from the Bench of PSN Prasad (Judicial Member) and Shukla after a video surfaced of Shukla and the Judicial Member of the Bench engaging in a heated exchange that had gone viral on social media.In the video, the Judicial Member was seen telling Shukla,"What is this? Everyday you are doing this. There should be some limit. You can’t do this everyday. I am tolerating you to a large extent."While Shukla’s response was not audible in the video, Prasad was also heard telling Shukla,“You ask anybody in the bar…Everyday you unnecessarily … people. Whatever clarification you want, you read. He [counsel] will comply with it, that is all, there ends the matter. ‘I want to do this, you want to do this’, don’t say that ... This is not the way. Kindly mend your behavior."Sources had told Bar and Bench, at the time, that this clash was not an isolated incident and that the technical member has had disagreements with the judicial member in open court on previous occasions as well..[Read January 4 Order]