Law on Cross Border Demergers in India

Adhar Gupta
Himachal Pradesh National Law University, Shimla, India.

Volume III, Issue IV, 2020

The law on cross border demergers is quite certain keeping in view the recent order of NCLT Ahmedabad in the matter of Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd. wherein it rejected the application of the petitioner demerged company to demerge into two foreign subsidiaries. The legislature is silent in the law of cross border demergers. Although, demergers have been happening all the time, the courts have opted for two different approached while dealing with inbound and outbound cross border demergers. Law is ever progressive and must be construed in a sense so as to grow with development and growth of society. There has been consistencies in the order of courts not only while approaching different matter but also internal consistencies while dealing with the same matter.

There is an urgent and immediate need to have a uniform and objective approach while dealing with cross border demergers and as such a lack of legislative enactment works as an impediment to getting to the solution. A clear and confusion free enactment in this regard would be highly commendable and much appreciated, which in turn would help in dealing with the inconsistencies and leave little or no room for judicial discretion in allowing or disallowing a cross border arrangement in the nature of demerger.