Whether the Former Directors of the Company on which insolvency proceedings have been initiated are entitled to receive the copy of the Resolution Plan from the Resolution Professional. Comment.

As per section 24(3)(b) of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the resolution professional shall give notice of each meeting of the committee of creditors to members of the suspended Board of Directors or the partners of the corporate persons, as the case may be. As per provision of section 24(4) the directors, as referred to in sub-section (3)(b), may attend the meetings of committee of creditors, but shall not have any right to vote in such meetings. In the matter of Vijay Kumar Jain vs. Standard Chartered Bank and others , an appeal was filed with Supreme Court against orders rejecting the prayer of an erstwhile director for getting copy of the resolution plans from the Resolution Professional. Both the NCLT and NCLAT ruled that appellant had no right to receive the resolution plans and the Resolution Professional has contended that only the members of CoC are entitled to have resolution plans, as per Section 30(3) IBC read with Regulation 39(2) of CIRP Regulations. The Supreme Court expressly rejected the argument based on relying on notes on clauses of section 24 of the code and held that every participant is entitled to a notice of every meeting of the committee of creditors. Such notice of meeting must contain an agenda of the meeting, together with the copies of all documents relevant for matters to be discussed and the issues to be voted upon at the meeting vide Regulation 21(3)(iii). Obviously, resolution plans are "matters to be discussed" at such meetings, and the erstwhile Board of Directors are "participants" who will discuss these issues." It was held that members of the erstwhile Board of Directors, being vitally interested in resolution plans that may be discussed at meetings of the committee of creditors, must be given a copy of such plans as part of "documents" that have to be furnished along with the notice of such committee of creditor (CoC) meetings. The Judgement also clarified that the resolution professional can take an undertaking from the erstwhile director to maintain confidentially of the information.