How Interim Relief Applications Move Through the NCLT Registry

An urgent matter reaches the National Company Law Tribunal only if it is filed complete in all respects before 12 noon under Rule 13 of the National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016, which then lists it for hearing the next working day. A filing between 12 noon and 3 p.m. needs the specific permission of the Bench, and papers held up in scrutiny under Rule 28 lose that benefit. Interim relief comes from Rule 11's inherent powers, or from section 242(4) of the Companies Act, 2013 in an oppression petition, not from asserting urgency. This article traces that process and when the Bombay High Court is the better forum.

Rule 13 and the Twelve O'Clock Deadline: What the Rules Actually Promise

The National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016 (the NCLT Rules) contain one provision aimed squarely at urgency. Rule 13, headed "Listing of cases", provides that an urgent matter filed before 12 noon shall be listed before the Tribunal on the following working day if it is complete in all respects as provided in the Rules, and that in exceptional cases a matter may be received after 12 noon but before 3.00 p.m. for listing on the following day, with the specific permission of the Bench.

Two features of that sentence repay attention. Rule 13 reads as an instruction to the Registry rather than a right conferred on a litigant, which is why asserting urgency in a covering letter achieves nothing on its own. The afternoon window is also no administrative courtesy: it needs the Bench's specific permission, so a judicial officer must be persuaded before the papers are even received. Timings frame the rest. Rule 10 keeps the filing counter open from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on working days, and Rule 9 fixes sitting hours at 10.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and 2.00 p.m. to 4.30 p.m., subject to any order of the President. An urgent filing lodged at four in the afternoon is, at best, a filing for the day after next.

Rule 155 Governs Amendments, Not Urgency

Counsel occasionally reach for rule 155 in the belief that it deals with urgent applications. It does not. Rule 155 concerns amendment of pleadings and, on its terms, permits amendment only within thirty days of the completion of pleadings. The provisions that carry weight in a genuinely urgent matter are Rule 11, which preserves the Tribunal's inherent power to make such orders as may be necessary for meeting the ends of justice or to prevent abuse of its process; Rule 13 on listing; Rule 14, under which the Tribunal may on sufficient cause exempt a party from compliance with any requirement of the Rules; and Rule 15, on extension of time.

Complete in All Respects Is the Condition That Does the Real Work

The promise in Rule 13 is conditional, and the condition defeats most urgent filings. Rule 24 requires three authenticated copies of the petition or application, with a copy delivered to each opposite party. Rule 34(4) requires verification by affidavit in Form NCLT-6. Rule 28 sets out what follows when scrutiny finds a defect: the papers are returned to the party after notice, and if the defect is not cured within seven days the file goes before the Registrar, who may decline to register it altogether.

The operational point is unglamorous. Speed at the NCLT is bought in the index, the annexures, the affidavit and the authorisation, not in the paragraph asserting urgency. A matter sitting in objections is not a matter awaiting a bench, and no amount of urgency language moves it.

Mentioning, Caveats and the Bench's Specific Permission

Nothing in the NCLT Rules corresponds to the mentioning practice familiar from the Supreme Court and the High Courts. There is no rule creating a mentioning slot, no prescribed mentioning memo, and no provision entitling counsel to interrupt the board. The closest the Rules come is the second limb of Rule 13, permitting a filing between 12 noon and 3.00 p.m. with the specific permission of the Bench. Securing that permission means approaching the bench, which is mentioning in substance if not in name.

How Does Listing Practice Differ Between NCLT Benches?

Because the practice rests on administrative arrangement rather than statute, it varies. At some benches counsel may seek permission orally when the board is called over in the morning. At others the request goes in writing through the Registrar, supported by an affidavit explaining the urgency, and reaches the bench only if the Registrar is satisfied. In-house counsel instructing across several benches should not assume the practice at one travels to another.

The Tribunal issues administrative instructions on listing from time to time and publishes them on the circulars page of its website. A set titled "Administrative Instructions regarding Listing of Cases and Preparation of Daily Cause Lists before the National Company Law Tribunal", issued on 12 August 2026, is the most recent published document of that kind. Checking the circulars page before instructing counsel to seek an out-of-turn listing costs nothing and avoids discovering the position on the morning it matters.

The Rule 25 Caveat and the Proviso That Limits It

A company expecting to be on the receiving end of an urgent application can lodge a caveat under Rule 25. It is filed in triplicate in Form NCLT-3C on payment of the prescribed fee, after a copy has been forwarded by registered post to, or served on, the expected petitioner or appellant, and it must carry the particulars of the anticipated proceeding together with a full address for service. A caveat remains valid for ninety days from filing. Rule 105 requires that where notice of a petition, caveat or interlocutory application issues, the copies served show the date of presentation and any interim order already made.

Rule 25 then adds a proviso that limits the comfort a caveat gives: the Tribunal may pass interim orders in case of urgency. Lodging a caveat improves the odds of being heard before an order is made; it confers no right to be heard. For a company with a live dispute and a hostile counterparty, a rolling ninety-day caveat calendar, diarised and renewed, is a cheap control that many in-house teams simply do not operate.

The Interlocutory Application: Form NCLT-1, Form NCLT-3 and Rule 32

Interim relief in a matter already instituted is sought by interlocutory application. Rule 34(3) prescribes the mechanics precisely: a petition, application or reference is filed in Form NCLT-1 with its attachments accompanied by Form NCLT-2, while an interlocutory application is filed in Form NCLT-1 with its attachments accompanied by Form NCLT-3. Rule 34(4) requires verification by affidavit in Form NCLT-6, with notice to the opposite party issuing in Form NCLT-5. Rule 112(2) confirms that an interlocutory application attracts its own fee under the Schedule of Fees to the Rules.

Rule 32 states what an interlocutory application is for: stay, direction, condonation of delay, exemption from production of a copy of the order appealed against, or extension of time, in matters that are pending. It requires the prescribed form, compliance with the requirements prescribed in that behalf, and an affidavit in support. That word "pending" is doing real work. Rule 32 and the definition of interlocutory application in the Rules both proceed on the footing that a proceeding has already been instituted, and both exclude execution. Relief needed before a main petition exists cannot be sought this way: it has to be pleaded as a prayer for ad interim relief inside the petition itself, or supported by Rule 11.

Drafting the Urgency So the Registry Can Act on It

A Registry official reading the papers is looking for something verifiable on the face of the record. "The respondent has convened an extraordinary general meeting for 4 September to approve a preferential allotment of forty per cent of the expanded capital" is verifiable, particularly with the notice annexed. "The applicant apprehends that the respondent may act to its prejudice" is not. Annex the meeting notice, the auction advertisement, the sale deed, the filing made with the Registrar of Companies. Where the urgency is a lapsing right, plead the date and identify the provision or contract that creates the deadline.

What the Tribunal Can Order, and Where Its Interim Power Stops

The Tribunal's interim jurisdiction is derivative: it can protect a proceeding it is competent to decide, and it cannot create jurisdiction it does not otherwise possess.

What Interim Relief Is Available Under Section 242(4)?

The widest express interim power available to the Tribunal sits in section 242(4) of the Companies Act, 2013 (the Act), which allows it, on the application of any party to the proceeding, to make any interim order it thinks fit for regulating the conduct of the company's affairs, on such terms and conditions as appear to it to be just and equitable. Read with Rule 11, the provision gives a bench hearing a petition under section 241 considerable room. Orders made under it have extended to directions for a forensic audit, restraints on respondents taking part in day-to-day management or operating the company's bank accounts and, at the extreme, suspension of a board and constitution of a replacement.

The qualification matters as much as the power. Section 242(4) authorises orders regulating the conduct of the company's affairs, and section 242(2)(f) requires the consent of a third party before an agreement between the company and that party is terminated, set aside or modified by way of final relief. It is difficult to see how a bench could achieve at the interim stage what the statute forbids at the final stage without that consent. Interim orders reaching the contractual rights of strangers to a section 241 petition have drawn sustained criticism for precisely that reason.

Protective Orders Before an Insolvency Application Is Admitted

Under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (the Code), the moratorium in section 14 operates from the insolvency commencement date. Between the filing of an application under section 7, 9 or 10 and the order admitting it there is no statutory freeze, and a corporate debtor that can see the filing coming has an interval in which to move assets.

The appellate answer to that gap is NUI Pulp and Paper Industries Pvt. Ltd. v. Roxcel Trading GmbH [Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 664 of 2019, NCLAT, judgment dated 17 July 2019]. The appellate tribunal upheld an order restraining the corporate debtor and its directors from alienating, encumbering or creating third-party interests in the company's assets until the section 9 application was admitted or rejected, holding that the Tribunal is competent to pass interim protective orders under Rule 11 at any stage after an application under section 7, 9 or 10 has been filed and before an order of admission.

What that decision does not do is create a pre-admission moratorium. The relief it sanctions is protective, directed at the corporate debtor's own dealings with its assets, and granted on material showing that assets are in fact being moved. An applicant seeking a blanket restraint on the strength of apprehension alone is asking for something the case does not supply.

Public Law, Third Parties and the Ceiling on Rule 11

Two decisions mark the boundary. In Embassy Property Developments Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Karnataka [(2020) 13 SCC 308] the Supreme Court held that the NCLT and the NCLAT have no jurisdiction to adjudicate a dispute arising from a State Government's refusal to grant a deemed extension of a mining lease under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, that decision lying in the public law domain and being open to challenge only before a court exercising the power of judicial review. The Tribunal, the Court said, is the creature of a special statute discharging specific functions and cannot be elevated to the status of a superior court with the power of judicial review over administrative action.

The second is GLAS Trust Company LLC v. BYJU Raveendran [2024 INSC 811], where the Supreme Court set aside an order of the NCLAT that had invoked its inherent power under rule 11 of the appellate rules to record a settlement and undo an admission, bypassing section 12A of the Code and the withdrawal procedure prescribed by regulation. Inherent power, the Court held, cannot be used to sidestep a procedure the statute prescribes. The reading for in-house counsel is short: Rule 11 fills gaps, it does not override provisions. A licence cancelled by a regulator, an order of a state authority, a tender decision, an attachment by an investigating agency: none becomes reviewable by the Tribunal because the company happens to be in a proceeding before it. Those belong before the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, as does interim protection against a person who is not a party to any tribunal proceeding, while interim measures in aid of arbitration lie under section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

Relief Sought, Correct Vehicle, Statutory Basis, Realistic Timing

The mapping below is worth having on a single page before any decision is taken to move the Tribunal at all.

The timing column carries a caveat. The NCLT publishes no service standard for urgent listing and the Rules fix no outer limit, so any figure is an observation of practice rather than an entitlement, and it varies between benches and with the state of the board. What can be said with confidence is that Rule 13 makes listing on the next working day achievable only for a filing that is complete when lodged, and that the variable which most often costs a fortnight is scrutiny under Rule 28, not the availability of a bench.

What Persuades a Bench to List a Matter Out of Turn?

Benches respond to irreversibility and to dates. Dissipation evidenced by a sale deed, an auction notice or a bank statement is the strongest case, because value that leaves cannot be restored by a final order. A meeting already convened runs it close, since the notice fixes both the date and the resolution proposed, and a completed allotment is far harder to unwind than to prevent. A right about to lapse, whether a limitation period, a statutory window or a contractual option, is the third category that reliably moves a board.

Little else does. The size of the claim carries no weight, nor does the seniority of the parties, nor generalised allegations of mismanagement unattached to a dated event. Delay of the applicant's own making is actively harmful: an application filed three weeks after the applicant learned the facts, describing them as an emergency, invites the obvious question and usually receives it. Where the real objective is to pre-empt a filing by the other side or to manufacture leverage in a negotiation, the papers tend to show it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the NCLT list a matter on the same day it is filed?

Rule 13 of the NCLT Rules, 2016 contemplates listing on the following working day for an urgent matter filed before 12 noon and complete in all respects. A filing received between 12 noon and 3.00 p.m. can also be listed the next day, but only with the specific permission of the Bench. Same-day listing is not something the Rules provide for, so plan on a next working day best case.

Is there a formal mentioning procedure at the NCLT?

No. The Rules contain no mentioning provision comparable to High Court practice. What exists is the requirement in Rule 13 that a post-noon filing be received only with the specific permission of the Bench, together with administrative arrangements that differ between benches. Confirm the local practice and check the Tribunal's published circulars on listing before you rely on it.

Does lodging a caveat prevent an order being made without hearing the company?

No. A caveat under Rule 25 in Form NCLT-3C is valid for ninety days and is meant to ensure that the application is served before it is taken up. Rule 25 expressly preserves the Tribunal's power to pass interim orders in case of urgency, so treat a caveat as improving your chances of a hearing rather than as a bar on relief granted without notice.

Can the Tribunal restrain a secured creditor from enforcing security while a section 7 application is pending?

There is no general power to do so. The bar on enforcement action under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 comes from section 14(1)(c) of the Code and operates only from the insolvency commencement date. Before admission, a challenge to enforcement measures lies before the Debt Recovery Tribunal under section 17 of that Act.

What is the correct form for an urgent interlocutory application?

Form NCLT-1 with its attachments, accompanied by Form NCLT-3, under Rule 34(3), verified by affidavit in Form NCLT-6 under Rule 34(4). Rule 32 requires an affidavit in support and confines the application to the purposes it lists. A separate fee applies under the Schedule of Fees to the Rules.

When should an urgent matter go to the High Court instead?

Whenever the relief needed is judicial review of an administrative or regulatory decision, an order against someone who is not a party to any tribunal proceeding, or an interim measure in support of arbitration. Embassy Property Developments Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Karnataka is the short answer on the first: the Tribunal is not a court of judicial review and cannot be made into one by reframing the prayer.

What documents must accompany an urgent NCLT filing to avoid rejection at scrutiny?

Rule 24 of the National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016 requires three authenticated copies of the petition or application, with a copy delivered to each opposite party, and Rule 34(4) requires verification by affidavit in Form NCLT-6. A filing missing either is defective under Rule 28: the Registry returns it after notice, and if the defect is not cured within seven days the file goes before the Registrar, who may decline to register it. An urgent filing that reaches the Registry incomplete loses the Rule 13 listing benefit regardless of how the covering letter describes the urgency, so the annexures and the affidavit matter more than the language used to plead speed.

How long does a caveat filed under Rule 25 remain valid, and can it be renewed?

A caveat lodged under Rule 25 of the National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016 in Form NCLT-3C remains valid for ninety days from the date of filing. There is no provision in the Rules for extending a single caveat beyond that period; the practice that works is to file a fresh caveat before the ninety days lapse, so protection against an ex parte order is continuous rather than allowed to run out. The proviso to Rule 25 still permits the Tribunal to pass interim orders in case of urgency even while a caveat is pending, so a valid caveat improves the chance of being heard but does not guarantee it.

Can the NCLT grant interim relief before a main petition is filed?

Not through an interlocutory application. Rule 32 of the National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016 confines an interlocutory application to a matter that is pending, meaning a petition or application has already been instituted. Relief needed before that petition exists has to be pleaded as a prayer for ad interim relief within the petition itself, supported by Rule 11, which preserves the Tribunal's inherent power to make orders necessary to meet the ends of justice or prevent abuse of its process. Filing a standalone interlocutory application ahead of the main petition is not available under the current Rules, however urgent the underlying facts.

What fee applies to an interlocutory application at the NCLT?

An interlocutory application attracts its own separate fee under the Schedule of Fees to the National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016, distinct from the fee paid on the main petition, as confirmed by Rule 112(2). The exact amount depends on the nature of the application and the Schedule current at the time of filing, so it should be checked against the Schedule rather than assumed to match the fee already paid on the underlying petition. Filing without the correct fee is itself a defect capable of attracting objection at scrutiny under Rule 28, alongside any deficiency in the supporting affidavit or annexures.

Can an NCLT order refusing interim relief be appealed?

Yes. An order of the National Company Law Tribunal, including one refusing interim relief, is appealable to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal under section 421 of the Companies Act, 2013, within forty five days of the order, extendable by a further forty five days on sufficient cause. Where the refusal arises in a proceeding under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the appeal instead lies under section 61 of that Code, subject to its own thirty-day period extendable by fifteen days. An appellant should annex the certified copy of the order and confirm which limitation regime applies before the papers are filed.

Does an interim order under section 242(4) bind persons who are not parties to the petition?

Not as a rule. Section 242(4) of the Companies Act, 2013 authorises the Tribunal to make interim orders regulating the conduct of the company's affairs in a petition already before it, and that power runs to the parties to the section 241 petition, not to strangers. Interim orders that reach into the contractual rights of third parties who are not before the Tribunal have drawn sustained judicial criticism for exceeding what section 242(4) permits at the interim stage. A person who is not a party and is affected by conduct connected to the dispute should seek relief through a civil court or the Bombay High Court rather than expect the NCLT's interim order to bind it directly.

Can the Tribunal grant an ex parte interim order without hearing the other side?

The National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016 do not set out a separate ex parte procedure, but Rule 11's preservation of inherent power has been used to grant protective orders before the opposite party is heard where the facts show assets are actually being moved. In NUI Pulp and Paper Industries Pvt. Ltd. v. Roxcel Trading GmbH the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal upheld an order restraining a corporate debtor from dealing with its assets, made under Rule 11 before the respondent had been heard. Such orders are exceptional, require verifiable material rather than apprehension, and are ordinarily followed promptly by notice to the affected party.

Vikrant D. Shetty | Vikrant D. Shetty leads the Insolvency and Arbitration Practice at the law firm Vikrant D. Shetty & Associates, Advocates & Solicitors which advises financial creditors, operational creditors, and corporate debtors in proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai Bench, including applications for interim and ad interim relief, and represents parties in domestic and international commercial arbitrations seated in India and abroad, including enforcement and challenge proceedings before the Bombay High Court.

Related reading: Treatment of Disputed Operational Creditor Claims at the Admission Stage Under IBC.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, please seek direct consultation with an advocate.