India's Bankruptcy Law at Risk: Judicial Overreach Threatens Speed and Simplicity

• The IBC, 2016 was designed as a market-driven, creditor-in-control resolution framework, with courts having a supervisory role for legality, not commercial decisions.
• Its initial credibility stemmed from speed, certainty, and the "commercial wisdom" doctrine of the Committee of Creditors (CoC), limiting judicial review to statutory compliance.
• Judicial intervention has expanded beyond legality to assessing "fairness" of distribution and reopening commercially settled issues, blurring the line between review and commercial substitution.
• This expansion leads to prolonged litigation, delays, reduced asset values, dampened bidder enthusiasm, and uncertainty, undermining IBC's core objectives of timely resolution.
• While judicial oversight is essential to prevent arbitrary decisions, it must remain focused on statutory compliance and timely disposal to preserve IBC's predictability and speed.