MSMED Act does not empower the Facilitation Council to review its own decisions

Case details

Bajaj Auto Limited vs Ajanta Press and Mechanical Works | 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 769 | CA 6555/2022 | 13 September 2022 | Justices Indira Banerjee and V. Ramasubramanian

Counsel: Sr. Adv Jaideep Gupta and AOR E. C. Agrawala for appellant, Adv Ashok Arora for respondent, Adv Suresh Dhole for State

Headnotes

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 ; Section 18,19 - MSMED Act does not empower the Facilitation Council to review its own decisions - i) that to begin with, the Facilitation Council should conduct conciliation; (ii) that upon failure of conciliation, the dispute is to be arbitrated either by the Facilitation council itself or by an institution to which it is referred; and (iii) that the decision arrived at thereto, constitutes an award. (Para 14-16)

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 ; Section 8(1) - MSMED Act is not applicable to transactions which took place even before the Act was enacted and that by taking recourse to Section 8(1) of the Act and filing a memorandum, a person cannot assume the legal status conferred under the Act to claim retrospectively - MSMED Act was not intended to provide a gateway for hopelessly time barred claims. (Para 12,17)