In a landmark judgment by Surpreme court it held that there is no protection from personal liability provided to directors and key managerial personnel by the apex court through this decision. However, the narrow interpretation of the term “in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company”in section 141taken by the apex court in other landmark cases does provide a possible recourse. The Court in a plethora of judgments such as National Small Industries v. Harmeet Singh Paintal [(2010) 3 SCC 330] and Pooja Ravinder Devadasani v. State of Maharshtra [(2014) 16 SCC 1] has held that it is the responsibility of the complainant to make specific averments against accused directors to make them liable for an offence under section 138.
This conclusively settles the issue of whether proceedings under the NI Act against a corporate debtor will be stayed upon admission and commencement of CIRP. However, the Court allowed the proceedings under sections 138/141 to be continued against natural persons under section 141(1) and (2) as the bar under section 14 of the IBC shall only be operative upon the corporate debtors and not the natural persons in charge of the corporate debtor.