GSTAT’s Real Challenge Is Not Backlog – It Is Transition!
C A Dhanashree Prabhu, Surya Prakash B S, Jatin Christopher & Vivek Jalan
July 29, 2026
I. Abstract
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code of 2016 drew a 330 day outer ceiling for corporate insolvency resolution. A decade later, the average resolution process takes 602 days to complete with lenders facing an average haircut of 67% on accepted claims1,2. The existing literature attributes this delay to a procedural failure3. This blog argues it is calculable. Using bench-level data from NCLT Kolkata – 680 day average, adjournment ratio of 0.67, approximately 11 wasted hearing dates per case, this blog builds a financial model to estimate asset value erosion per adjournment. Using Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency of India Limited (ICRA) report that documents relationship between delay and recovery loss and applying conservative depreciation assumptions to claim value, the blog shows that each adjournment at NCLT Kolkata adds approximately 45 inter-listing days4, accumulating into a value loss that far exceeds any procedural justification. When you start thinking about absorption not as a scheduling issue but as a financial event with a high cost impact, the rationale for structural reform becomes not merely administrative but also an issue of trust.
II. Introduction
When an NCLT bench adjourns an IBC case and data shows this happens in two out of every three hearings, it means the case is given a next date without substantive progress. However, the existing discourse does not attempt to quantify the financial cost – not in rupees, not per case, not in total. By June 2025, CIRPs that resulted in resolution plans took an average of 602 days to complete compared to the legal limit of 330 days and about 78% of ongoing CIRPs are running longer than 270 days5. At NCLT Kolkata6, the picture is clearer, a primary dataset of 42 urgent IBC cases disposed of between 2017 and 2025 shows an average time of 680 days, a median of 543 days and an adjournment ratio of 0.67. This ratio, applied to an average of 16.7 listings per case, means that no urgent order was passed on approximately 11 hearing dates per case, on which parties appeared, the bench sat, the case was heard but nothing progressed7.
