Creditor means any person to whom a debt is owed and includes a financial creditor, an operational creditor, a secured creditor, an unsecured creditor and a decree holder. Define creditor and citing relevant case laws ex

According to Section 3(10) of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, "Creditor" means any person to whom a debt is owed and includes a financial creditor, an operational creditor, a secured creditor, an unsecured creditor and a decree holder. A 'financial creditor' has been defined at Section 5(7) of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code as follows: "Any person to whom a financial debt is owed and includes any person to whom such debt has been legally assigned or transferred." (Emphasis supplied) An 'operational creditor' has been defined at Section 5(20) of the of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code as follows: "a person to whom an operational debt is owed and includes any person to whom such debt has been legally assigned or transferred." Section 3 is in Part I of I&B Code. Part II of I&B Code deals with "Insolvency Resolution and Liquidation for Corporate Person" & has its own definitions in Section 5. Section 3 (10) of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code definition of "Creditor" includes "financial creditor", "operational creditor" "decree-holder" etc. But Section 7 or Section 9 dealing with "Financial Creditor" and "operational creditor" do not include "decree-holder" to initiate CIRP in Part II." In the matter of Digamber Bhondwe Vs. JM Financial Asset Reconstruction [CA(AT) (Ins) No. 1379 of 2019] it was held "...... We further reject the submission that because in Section 3(10) of I&B Code in definition of "Creditor" the "decree holder" is included it shows that decree gives cause to initiate application under Section 7 of IBC Sh. Sushil Ansal Vs Ashok Tripathi and Ors , the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, Delhi (NCLAT) held that no decree holder who is covered within the definitions of creditor given under Section 3(10) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) can come within the ambit of the class of a financial creditor. The Tribunal has opined as follows: We further reject the submission that because in Section 3(10) of I&B Code in definition of "Creditor" the "decree holder" is included it shows that decree gives cause to initiate application under Section 7 of I&B Code. Section 3 is in Part I of I&B Code. Part II of I&B Code deals with "Insolvency Resolution and Liquidation for Corporate Person", & has its own set of definitions in Section 5. But Section 7 or Section 9 dealing with "Financial Creditor" and "operational creditor" do not include "decree-holder" to initiate CIRP in Part II. This implies that a decree holder is not permitted to initiate any corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against any corporate debtor with the objective of executing a decree under it.