The Supreme Court on Monday, July 21, dismissed the petitions filed by the BCCI and Riju Ravindran, brother of Byju Ravindran, seeking withdrawal of insolvency proceedings against Byju. The court also refused to consider the settlement between the crisis-hit edtech company and the BCCI.
A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan refused to interfere with the April 17 order of the NCLAT. The tribunal had said that since the settlement proposal was filed after the formation of the CoC, it required approval under Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
Earlier in February 2025, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had directed the petitioners to place their settlement proposal before the new CoC, in which US-based Glas Trust, trustee for lenders to whom Byju’s owes $1.2 billion, is a member. The NCLAT had initiated the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against Byju’s in July last year, admitting BCCI’s claim of Rs 158.90 crore as an operational creditor of the edtech major.
An interim resolution professional (IRP) was also appointed in the case. Later, a settlement was reached between the two parties and Byju Raveendran approached the NCLAT. The appellate tribunal on August 2, 2024 dropped the insolvency proceedings against Byju’s, which had entered into a team sponsorship agreement with the cricket body in 2019, after approving a settlement of dues with the BCCI. This was challenged in the Supreme Court by Glas Trust.
A bench headed by then Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud stayed the NCLAT order and directed the BCCI to deposit the relevant amounts in a separate escrow account until further orders.
Meanwhile, Byju’s Alpha, a special purpose financing vehicle established by Byju’s in the US to receive proceeds of a $1.5 billion Term Loan B, has sued Byju Raveendran, co-founder and his wife Divya Gokulnath for “orchestrating theft of $533 million”. Byju’s Alpha said that following the $533 million judgment of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware against Riju Ravindran and Byju’s ultimate corporate parent in India, the company has now filed a lawsuit against Byju Raveendran, his co-founder and wife Divya Gokulnath, and his consigliere (advisor), Anita Kishore.
The lawsuit states that each of them co-orchestrated and executed a lawless scheme to conceal and steal $533 million of loan proceeds (the ‘Alpha Funds’), according to a press release. They further stated that “it is clear that Byju, Divya, and Anita deliberately hid the assets of Byju’s Alpha and repeatedly were deceptive about the location of the money in order to steal funds rightfully owed to the Lenders”.
With the inputs of IANS
