Recall Of Order Not Permissible For Party's Failure; 'Mistake' Must Be Tribunal's Error: NCLT Hyderabad

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) at Hyderabad has recently held that a mistake warranting recall of order must be apparent on the face of the record and attributable to an error of the tribunal, and not to the failure of a party to place relevant material before it.

A coram comprising Judicial Member Rajeev Bhardwaj and Technical Member Sanjay Puri on February 11, 2026, dismissed a recall application filed by Colliers International (India) Property Services Pvt. Ltd.

Colliers is the operational creditor. It had filed a Section 9 insolvency petition against SAS iTower Pvt. Ltd., the Corporate Debtor.

The tribunal held that the inherent power of recall cannot be used to rehear or re-adjudicate issues on merits by introducing documents that were not part of the original record.

“The plea of the Applicant that the impugned order suffers from a 'mistake' is misconceived. A mistake warranting recall must be apparent on the face of the record and attributable to an error of the Tribunal, and not to the failure of a party to place relevant material before the Tribunal,” the bench observed.

Colliers insolvency plea against SAS iTower Pvt. Ltd was rejected on January 29, 2025. The tribunal had held that no documentary evidence was produced to substantiate the assertion that SAS Infra had been taken over by, or converted into, the corporate debtor and that the corporate debtor had assumed its liabilities.

Seeking recall of that order, the applicant contended that it had subsequently discovered resolutions, statutory notices, newspaper publications, affidavits, and filings under Section 366 of the Companies Act, 2013, which it claimed established that SAS Infra had been converted into the corporate debtor with transfer of assets and liabilities.

It also relied on an email dated December 17, 2021 and the corporate debtor's replies to the legal notice dated April 4, 2024 and the demand notice to argue that the liability stood admitted.

Rejecting these submissions, the tribunal held that Rule 11 of the NCLT Rules preserves only limited inherent powers and does not confer a power of review. It was observed that the original dismissal was a conscious decision taken on the basis of the material placed on record and that the applicant was effectively seeking reconsideration of the merits by introducing additional documents.

“Applying the aforesaid principles to the present case, we observe that the power of recall is not intended to afford a litigant a second opportunity to improve its case by producing additional material which admittedly was not part of the record when the original order was passed,” the tribunal said.

Finding that no ground warranting recall was made out, the tribunal dismissed the application as devoid of merit.