By: Anadi Sahu
INTRODUCTION
Recently, the Hon’ble National Company Law Tribunal [hereinafter “NCLT”], Indore Bench, in Dilip Yadav v. Chayya Gupta (RP) and Anr. (2026), considered the consequences of a homebuyer’s failure to file a claim during the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process [hereinafter “CIRP”]. The decision provides a recent illustration of the limits within which belated homebuyer claims may be entertained after approval of a resolution plan.
For perspective, real estate has consistently been one of the largest contributors to India’s insolvency docket. According to data published by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India [hereinafter “IBBI”], the sector accounted for 22% of all insolvency cases admitted as of March 31, 2026. This share has remained broadly unchanged since at least December 2024, when real estate accounted for the same 22%, second only to manufacturing at 37%. On the resolution front , the IBBI Chairperson noted in the April–June 2024 newsletter that almost 46% of real estate companies have been successfully resolved through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code [hereinafter “IBC”]. These figures, however, do not fully convey the human impact of real estate insolvency. As of 2025, roughly 4.12 lakh residential units worth close to 4.08 trillion rupees remain stalled across the country, and many of them are affected by insolvency proceedings. The issues surrounding the filing of claims are therefore far from academic for the homebuyers awaiting these units.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court [hereinafter “SC”], in a catena of judgments, has clarified that homebuyers will be treated as “financial creditors” under the IBC framework, as held in Nikhil Mehta & Sons (HUF) & Ors. v. AMR Infrastructures Ltd. (2017). However, that was a different scenario altogether, as this was merely a judicial approach, and the concerns of homebuyers as a class largely remained unaddressed until the 2018 Amendment which filled the impasse and brought them formal representation as a class of financial creditors.
But it has to be understood that once a corporate debtor goes into CIRP, the Interim Resolution Professional [hereinafter “IRP”] issues a public announcement under Section 15 of the IBC read with Regulation 6 of the CIRP Regulations, inviting all creditors, including homebuyers, to submit their claims, typically in Form CA, within the prescribed window. But many homebuyers are simply not in a position to know about this. The announcement is published in newspapers circulated in the areas where the corporate debtor has its registered or corporate office, not necessarily where the homebuyers themselves reside, and a large number of them are often unfamiliar with the technicalities of insolvency law altogether, resulting in them missing the window entirely. It is in this gap that the whole jurisprudence around “equitable relaxation” for homebuyers has developed.
The more difficult question, however, is the extent to which such flexibility may be permitted and the stage at which the law requires finality to prevail.
THE CLEAN-SLATE PRINCIPLE AND ITS LIMITED EXCEPTION
When a corporate debtor is admitted into CIRP, the IRP or Resolution Professional [hereinafter “RP”] is statutorily obligated under Section 18 and Section 25 of the IBC to receive, collate, and verify claims from creditors, and prepare an Information Memorandum [hereinafter “IM”] reflecting the liabilities of the company. This IM is an important basis on which Prospective Resolution Applicants assess the Corporate Debtor and formulate their bids. A liability left out of it is, practically speaking, one that the resolution applicant never accounted for, and once a plan is approved, one that is nearly impossible to revive.
This is precisely why the Hon’ble SC , in Ghanshyam Mishra and Sons Pvt. Ltd. v. Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd. (2021), settled the position that once a resolution plan is approved by the Adjudicating Authority [hereinafter “AA”] under Section 31(1) of the IBC, it binds all stakeholders, including those who did not file claims or whose claims were never considered. This principle is commonly described as the “clean slate” doctrine. The successful resolution applicant takes over the corporate debtor free of all undecided or unclaimed liabilities, and no claim can resurface after approval to disturb that slate.
But, considering the situation of the homebuyers, applying the same sort of standard leaves several homebuyers to the vagaries. Thereby, the Hon’ble National Company Law Appellate Tribunal [hereinafter “NCLAT”] in June 2022, in Puneet Kaur v. K V Developers Private Limited & Ors. tried to carve out a breathing room for homebuyers within that otherwise absolute doctrine. Here, the NCLAT held that the homebuyers who had not filed their claims in time, but had filed at any stage before the approval of the resolution plan by the AA under Section 31, then it should be considered. This means that even once the resolution plan had been approved by the Committee of Creditors [hereinafter “CoC”], then also the claim survives if filed before the AA’s approval. Because extinguishment of a claim happens only upon approval by the AA, not merely by the CoC, and more significantly, the Tribunal’s reasoning was not confined to the formal filing of a claim and held that wherever the homebuyer’s payments and allotment details were independently verifiable from the corporate debtor’s records, the RP is obligated under Regulation 36 of the IBBI to collate such claims in the IM, even if those homebuyers never filed a formal claim, as non-consideration of such claims could lead to an inequitable and unfair resolution.
Essentially, here the RP’s duty extended beyond the strict claim-filing timeline, provided that the claims were independently verifiable from the company’s own books. But that duty, as the cases below show, does not travel very far.
NARROWING THE WINDOW
In April 2024 only, the Hon’ble NCLAT in Pooja Mehra v. Nilesh Sharma, referred once again to Puneet Kaur, and Justice Ashok Bhushan, who delivered Puneet Kaur earlier, clarified that in the case, the facts were different; there, the RP had already disclosed the details of homebuyers whose claims were reflected in company records, and the resolution plan had duly dealt with them. In Pooja Mehra, by contrast, the appellant’s claim surfaced 540 days after the claim window closed and roughly two months after the CoC had already approved the plan, and it did not even feature in the corporate debtor’s records. Therefore, the Tribunal emphasised that the IBC is a time-bound process, and a belated claimant cannot “unleash the hydra-headed monster of undecided claims” on a resolution applicant after the CoC’s approval, irrespective of whether the AA has formally signed off. So, the duty in Puneet Kaur survives only where two conditions are simultaneously met: the claim is genuinely traceable to the corporate debtor’s own records, and it surfaces before the process has commercially progressed.
The approach adopted in Pooja Mehra was subsequently followed by the Hon’ble NCLT Delhi Bench in Dhankalash Distributors Pvt. Ltd. v. Piyush IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd., reinforcing the significance of the stage at which a belated claim is introduced into the CIRP.
WHAT IF THE CLAIM WAS ALREADY FILED AND APPROVED
It is tempting, at this point, to consider the SC’s decision in Amit Nehra v. Pawan Kumar Garg (2025), as it looks like it dealt with this question. But in this, the homebuyers’ claim had in fact been filed, further verified by the RP, and eventually incorporated into the published list of creditors well before the plan’s approval. Thereby, the whole contention was only about whether a resolution applicant could later downgrade an already-recognised, verified claim to a mere refund category. The Court held that, once a verified claim is listed, it “acquires full legal recognition” within the CIRP and it cannot be denied. That is a meaningfully different fact pattern from a homebuyer who never filed at all.
RECENT STATUS
Against this background, the decision of the NCLT Indore Bench, in April 2026, in Dilip Yadav v. Chayya Gupta (RP) and Anr. assumes particular significance. Here, the homebuyer failed to file any claim during CIRP, despite Form-G being published three times by two successive RPs. And later, when the resolution plan had already been approved by the AA and roughly 1.5 years had passed, he approached the NCLT. The Tribunal drew a clear distinction from Puneet Kaur and Pooja Mehra, as in those cases, the resolution plan had only been approved by the CoC, not yet by the AA.
And the Tribunal reiterated that once the resolution plan is approved by the AA under Section 31, it binds all stakeholders as per the “clean slate” doctrine. Hence, the subsequent claims cannot be entertained as it is the duty of homebuyers to follow the maxim of vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt (emphasising the need for homebuyers to remain vigilant in asserting their claims). Dilip Yadav, therefore, does not establish a new exception to the existing jurisprudence; rather, it demonstrates the increasing difficulty of introducing a claim once the resolution process has advanced to, and ultimately crossed, the stage of Section 31 approval.
CONCLUSION
The position, therefore, is one of a progressively narrowing window rather than a single exception to the claim-filing timeline. Puneet Kaur recognises limited protection where a homebuyer’s claim is independently ascertainable from the corporate debtor’s records, while Pooja Mehra demonstrates that such protection narrows as the CIRP progresses. Amit Nehra further distinguishes an already verified and recognised claim from one that was never filed. Dilip Yadav, in turn, illustrates the finality attached to approval of the resolution plan by the AA under Section 31.
So, on the basis of this analysis, it could be inferred that a homebuyer’s claim can be entertained only until the resolution plan is approved. Up to the AA’s approval, a claim traceable to the company’s books or Real Estate Regulatory Authority [hereinafter “RERA”] records should be considered even if filed late. A claim that is not traceable must be raised before the CoC approves the plan. After the AA’s approval, the clean slate must prevail, as held in Ghanshyam Mishra and now codified in Section 31(6), in force since 26 May 2026. Three considerations justify drawing the line here: the finality of an approved plan, the public notice already given to creditors, and the fact that a buyer’s claims against promoters and guarantors survive the plan.
The regulators have so far targeted the RP’s duty, not the buyer’s deadline. Since 25 February 2026, Regulation 36(2)(ja) of the CIRP Regulations requires the IM to list the names, amounts due and units allotted of allottees whose claims appear in the corporate debtor’s books or RERA records but who have not filed claims. Under the newly inserted Regulation 38A, the resolution plan must then state how those allottees will be treated, although the regulation does not prescribe what that treatment must be. Following the intervention in Mansi Brar Fernandes v. Shubha Sharma (2025), the IBBI committee submitted a 155-recommendation report in April 2026 discussing concerns regarding real estate insolvency. Further, the recent IBBI discussion paper dated 30 June 2026 proposed a simplified allottee claim form (Form CA-R) and a project-wise disclosure of each buyer’s preferred relief. Neither the amended regulations nor the discussion paper fixes a deadline within which homebuyers must claim. Until a statutory window exists, the stage at which a claim is raised remains decisive.
(Anadi Sahu is a fourth-year B.B.A. LL.B. student at the Indian Institute of Management Rohtak. The Author may be contacted via mail at anadisahu9926@gmail.com)
Cite as: Anadi Sahu, The Shrinking Window: How Long Does a Homebuyer Really Have to Claim Under the IBC?, 20 October 2026 <https://rmlnlulawreview.com/2026/10/20/the-shrinking-window-how-long-does-a-homebuyer-really-have-to-claim-under-the-ibc/> date of access.