The Company That Owes Me Money Has Gone Into CIRP: How Do I File My Claim and What Will I Actually Get?

Your customer company has been admitted into a corporate insolvency resolution process, and from that date your unpaid invoices stop being a recovery problem and become a claim. An operational creditor claim in CIRP is filed with the interim resolution professional in Form B under regulation 7 of the CIRP Regulations, with proof, by the date in the public announcement, and if you do nothing the debt can be wiped out when the resolution plan is approved. What you receive is not your invoice value but a share governed by section 30(2)(b) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, a floor and not a ceiling.

Part of the money recovery practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.

This guide is for the supplier or services vendor, often a registered MSME, who learnt of the admission from a newspaper notice or an email from the interim resolution professional. Starting an insolvency yourself needs a default of at least one crore rupees and is covered in the post on the insolvency threshold.

What does "admitted into CIRP" mean for my unpaid invoices?

It means the company you invoiced is no longer run by the people who ordered from you, and every recovery route against it is frozen. Section 17 vests management in the interim resolution professional and suspends the board. Section 14(1)(a) prohibits the institution or continuation of suits or proceedings against the corporate debtor, including execution of any judgment, decree or order, in any court, tribunal, arbitration panel or other authority. Your suit, arbitration, execution petition and Facilitation Council reference all stop where they stand.

The MSME point deserves a plain answer because suppliers ask it first. Section 238 gives the Code effect over any inconsistent law, and a Facilitation Council reference under section 18 of the MSMED Act is a proceeding against the corporate debtor before an authority, which is what section 14(1)(a) stops. The Jharkhand High Court in Electrosteel Steel Ltd v Ispat Carriers Pvt Ltd (17 July 2023) recorded a Council that stopped once the moratorium was notified and resumed after it ended, calling section 14 "very clear". The 45-day rule and MSMED interest, explained in the post on MSME delayed payment recovery, still describe your debt but no longer give you a forum.

Two things do not freeze. A supply the resolution professional treats as critical under section 14(2A) must continue, but only while the company pays for it. And section 14(3)(b) takes the personal guarantor out of the moratorium altogether. Section 3(6) defines a claim as a right to payment whether disputed or undisputed, so your invoices are already a claim. The process asks you to prove it to one person by one date.

Deadline warning. The public announcement under section 15 must state the last date for submitting claims, and regulation 6(2)(c) fixes it at fourteen days from the appointment of the interim resolution professional, not fourteen days from the day you happened to read the newspaper.

What is the deadline for an operational creditor claim in CIRP, and what if I missed the fourteen days?

The deadline is the date in the public announcement, which regulation 6(2)(c) fixes at fourteen days from the appointment of the interim resolution professional, and missing it is not fatal if you move quickly. Regulation 6(1) requires the announcement within three days of the appointment, in two newspapers and on the Board's website. Regulation 6A requires the interim resolution professional to send a copy to every creditor in the company's last books of accounts, which is why many vendors first hear by email, and its proviso deems the announcement communicated even if no email came, so the date still runs.

Late claims have a second window. The proviso to regulation 12(1), in force since 18 September 2023, allows a creditor who missed the date to file "up to the date of issue of request for resolution plans under regulation 36B or ninety days from the insolvency commencement date, whichever is later", and the further proviso requires "reasons for delay in submitting the claim beyond the period of ninety days".

There is a thinner third window. Regulation 13(1B) covers claims received up to seven days before the committee votes on a plan or on liquidation, and regulation 13(1C) sends an acceptable late claim to the committee for a recommendation and to the tribunal for condonation of delay, a weaker place to stand. Missing every window turns a debt into nothing. In Ghanashyam Mishra and Sons Pvt Ltd v Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Co Ltd (13 April 2021) the Supreme Court held that once a plan is approved under section 31, "all such claims, which are not a part of resolution plan, shall stand extinguished and no person will be entitled to initiate or continue any proceedings" for them.

Which form do I file, and what proof goes with it?

You file Form B, headed "Proof of Claim by Operational Creditors except Workmen and Employees", the format notified for regulation 7 by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India's circular IBBI/CIRP/94/2026 dated 2 June 2026. The forms now live in the circular and not in a schedule, so download the current version from the link the announcement gives under regulation 6(2)(ba). Regulation 7(1) allows filing in person, by post or by email, with supplementary documents allowed until the committee is constituted.

Form B has eleven entries. The ones that decide the outcome are entry 4, the total claim including interest as at the insolvency commencement date, entry 6, any dispute and any pending suit or arbitration, entry 8, any set-off the company may raise, and entry 11, the documents attached to prove existence and non-payment. It ends with a declaration that the company was "actually indebted" to you in that sum at the commencement date, signed for a company by a director, manager or secretary.

Regulation 7(2) lists the proof: a contract for the supply, an invoice demanding payment, financial accounts, and the relevant extracts of Form GSTR-1 and Form GSTR-3B with the e-way bill wherever applicable. Regulation 10 lets the professional call for more, regulation 11 puts the cost of proof on you, and section 15(1)(e) has the announcement warn of penalties for false claims, so entry 4 should carry a figure your ledger and your returns both support, with interest computed only to the commencement date.

The four documents below carry most of the weight at verification.

Do I need a lawyer to file the claim?

No. Form B is designed to be filed by the creditor itself, there is no hearing, and the regulations prescribe no fee. Professional help earns its fee after filing. Regulation 13(1A), substituted on 2 June 2026, requires the resolution professional to "either admit or reject the claim, in whole or in part" and to communicate the decision "along with reasons for the same, within seven days". That reasoned rejection is the document a lawyer reads, and the reply to it, or the application under section 60(5), is where the money is won or lost.

What I tell clients at this stage is that the claim which survives is the one whose invoice, purchase order, delivery record and GST return tell a single story with the same numbers, and the claim that gets cut is the one that arrives as a round-figure ledger balance. Where the company's own books show a lower figure or a debit note you never accepted, the professional admits the lower figure with reasons, and the burden of moving the tribunal is then yours. The cheapest legal spend in the whole process is an hour on the file before it is filed. The expensive one is a section 60(5) application filed because that hour was skipped. Indicatively, preparing a documented claim costs in the low tens of thousands of rupees and a contested section 60(5) application before the Bengaluru Bench runs from a few tens of thousands to a low six-figure sum, neither being a tariff.

The company disputes my invoice: will the resolution professional still admit it?

A disputed invoice is still a claim, and it must still be filed, but the resolution professional will admit only what the documents establish and may estimate the rest. Section 3(6) includes a "disputed" right to payment in the definition of claim, and entry 6 of Form B asks you to disclose the dispute yourself, which you should, because the company's records will show it.

The resolution professional does not decide who is right. Section 18(b) says "receive and collate", and the Supreme Court in Swiss Ribbons Pvt Ltd v Union of India (25 January 2019) held that "the resolution professional has no adjudicatory powers". The 2026 Amendment Act adds an Explanation to section 18(b) that the professional "shall verify" the claims "and, if required, determine the value of such verified claims", so expect a reasoned admission or rejection rather than a bare collation, with the Tribunal still the forum for any dispute about it. Regulation 13(1) requires verification as on the insolvency commencement date within seven days of the last date for receipt, and where the amount is not precise regulation 14(1) directs the professional to "make the best estimate of the amount of the claim based on the information available with him", revised under regulation 14(2) as information arrives. A dispute over one consignment therefore usually produces an admitted figure for the rest and an estimate or a nil for that one.

The remedy against a wrong verification is an application under section 60(5)(b) or (c), which gives the National Company Law Tribunal jurisdiction over "any claim made by or against the corporate debtor" and "any question of priorities or any question of law or facts" in the insolvency. Move quickly. In Committee of Creditors of Essar Steel India Ltd v Satish Kumar Gupta (15 November 2019) the court held that "all claims must be submitted to and decided by the resolution professional so that a prospective resolution applicant knows exactly what has to be paid", and that a successful applicant cannot be faced with undecided claims afterwards, a hydra head popping up. A dispute you park until after the plan is a dispute you have lost.

Do I get a seat or a vote in the committee of creditors?

Not a vote, and a seat only if operational creditors together are owed a tenth or more of the company's debt. Section 21(2) says the committee "shall comprise all financial creditors of the corporate debtor". Section 24(3)(c) requires notice of each meeting to "operational creditors or their representatives if the amount of their aggregate dues is not less than ten per cent. of the debt", and section 24(4) lets "one representative of operational creditors" attend "but shall not have any right to vote". A plan needs sixty-six per cent of the financial creditors' voting share under section 30(4). The ten per cent test is measured on all operational creditors' dues together, so if the class crosses it, agree a representative with the other suppliers, because that is the one voice your class has in the room.

There is one committee in which suppliers do vote. Where the company has no financial debt, or every financial creditor is a related party, regulation 16 builds the committee from the eighteen largest unrelated operational creditors by value plus one workmen's and one employees' representative, the word "unrelated" having been inserted with effect from 9 June 2026. In a bank-initiated CIRP that committee will not be yours. The design survived challenge in Swiss Ribbons, which found financial creditors involved from the start in "assessing the viability of the corporate debtor", "which are things operational creditors do not and cannot do", and the two classes are compared in the post on operational debt versus financial debt. You will not be in the room when the plan is voted, so the plan's floor is your real protection.

How much will I actually get: liquidation value, the section 53 waterfall and what plans pay

You will get not less than the higher of two numbers, and beyond that floor whatever the successful bidder and the financial creditors agree to give your class. Section 30(2)(b) requires every plan to pay operational creditors not less than "the amount to be paid to such creditors in the event of a liquidation of the corporate debtor under section 53" or the amount they would receive if the plan money "had been distributed in accordance with the order of priority" in section 53, "whichever is higher", and Explanation 1 declares such a distribution "fair and equitable". Regulation 38(1)(a) adds that the amount payable to operational creditors "shall be paid in priority over financial creditors".

The floor is set by the section 53 waterfall below, in which an unsecured trade creditor sits in the sixth bucket, section 53(1)(f), "any remaining debts and dues". When the assets are worth less than the secured debt, the usual position, nothing reaches that bucket and the first limb is nil. The second limb, added in 2019, runs the plan money itself through the same order, so the floor rises above zero only if the plan brings in more than the secured debt.

Above the floor, the number is whatever the committee approves. Essar Steel called that a business decision taken "by a majority, which then binds all stakeholders" and held that there is "no residual jurisdiction not to approve a resolution plan on the ground that it is unfair or unjust to a class of creditors, so long as the interest of each class has been looked into and taken care of". Equality, the court added, is equality within the same class, and the minimum is the floor: a plan "cannot pass muster under Section 30(2)(b) read with Section 31 unless a minimum payment is made to operational creditors, being not less than liquidation value".

The numbers are honest rather than comforting. Where assets are worth less than the bank debt, plans commonly offer trade creditors a single-digit to low-double-digit percentage of the admitted claim, applied to the admitted amount and nothing else, which is why proof decides how much you receive.

The plan gives me five per cent: can I object?

You can object, but only on the grounds section 61(3) allows, and "five per cent is unfair" is not one of them. An appeal against the approval order lies to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal under section 61(2) within thirty days, extendable by not more than fifteen days on sufficient cause, on five grounds: contravention of any law, material irregularity by the resolution professional, that "the debts owed to operational creditors of the corporate debtor have not been provided for in the resolution plan in the manner specified by the Board", process costs not given priority, or non-compliance with another criterion specified by the Board.

The third ground is yours, and it is about the floor, not the percentage. If the plan pays operational creditors less than the section 30(2)(b) minimum, or after financial creditors in breach of regulation 38(1)(a), the appeal has something to bite on. If the plan clears those tests and offers five per cent, Essar Steel is the answer: the tribunals cannot "enter into the merits of a business decision of the requisite majority of the Committee of Creditors", and the appellate tribunal's attempt in that case to rewrite the distribution was set aside. The realistic objection is made earlier, through the section 24(4) representative and at the section 31 approval hearing, where the floor is examined for the last time.

Key takeaway. Section 30(2)(b) fixes a floor and section 61(3)(iii) lets you appeal if the plan falls below it. Neither provision entitles an operational creditor to a percentage, and neither tribunal will substitute its view of a fair number for the committee's vote.

What if the company goes into liquidation instead?

It depends on when the liquidation began, and you are paid in the section 53 order from whatever the assets fetch. Section 33 sends a company into liquidation when no plan arrives in time, when the plan is rejected, or when the committee votes by sixty-six per cent to liquidate. Since 26 May 2026 the committee can also apply once, by sixty-six per cent, to have the process restored for up to one hundred and twenty days before a liquidation order is passed, under section 33(1A) as inserted by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act, 2026. For a liquidation that began on or before 26 May 2026, section 38(1) required the liquidator to receive or collect claims within thirty days of the liquidation commencement and section 38(5) allowed a claim to be varied within fourteen days. For a liquidation that begins after that date, sections 38 to 42 stand omitted by the 2026 Amendment Act: the liquidator no longer invites fresh claims but must maintain an updated list of claims under section 35(1)(a) in the manner the Board specifies, the committee of creditors supervises the liquidation under section 21(11), and your admitted process claim is the starting point of that list, so check it and write to the liquidator at once if it is wrong. The section 14 moratorium ceases under section 14(4), section 33(5) bars suits against the company, and a liquidation order passed after 26 May 2026 carries its own moratorium under section 33(1)(b)(iv), so treat the liquidation announcement as a fresh deadline. Where the banks realise their security outside the estate under section 52 the sixth bucket often receives nothing.

Are the director's personal guarantee and my bounced cheques still worth anything?

Yes to both, and they may be worth more than the claim itself, because the moratorium protects the company and not the human beings behind it. Section 14(3)(b) provides that the moratorium "shall not apply to a surety in a contract of guarantee to a corporate debtor". The Supreme Court in State Bank of India v V. Ramakrishnan (14 August 2018) had already held that "Section 14 refers only to debts due by corporate debtors" and that guarantors are not to escape their "independent and co-extensive liability to pay off the entire outstanding debt". If a director signed a personal guarantee for your supplies, you may proceed against him during the CIRP, including under Part III of the Code before the same tribunal under section 60(2), a route explained in the post on personal guarantor repayment plans.

Cheques follow the same split. In P. Mohanraj v Shah Brothers Ispat Pvt Ltd (1 March 2021) the Supreme Court held that a proceeding under sections 138 and 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act against a corporate debtor "is covered by Section 14(1)(a)", so your complaint against the company is stayed, but that "such proceedings can be initiated or continued against the persons mentioned in Section 141(1) and (2)", the moratorium applying "only to the corporate debtor, the natural persons mentioned in Section 141 continuing to be statutorily liable". Your complaint against the signatory director continues. Who may lawfully be named is covered in the post on cheque bounce cases against directors. One caution: regulation 12A requires you to update your claim "as and when the claim is satisfied, partly or fully, from any source", so a guarantor recovery cannot be collected twice, and an approved plan binds "guarantors" under section 31(1), so read its wording on guarantors before you sue.

What about the GST I paid on invoices that will never be paid?

That is a separate question for your chartered accountant, beyond two points the insolvency law itself makes. Regulation 7(2)(b)(v) makes your GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B extracts part of the proof, so the invoices you reported and the invoices you claim must be the same, and a credit note issued now to reverse an invoice reduces the claim you can prove. And the tax authority is itself an operational creditor under section 5(21), whose unclaimed dues Ghanashyam Mishra held extinguished like everyone else's. Whether the tax paid on an unpaid invoice can be adjusted or written off belongs to the GST law and your returns, so ask the accountant before you issue any credit note, because the credit note and the claim must agree.

Step by step: filing and defending an operational creditor claim

1. Get the admission order, note the insolvency commencement date, find the public announcement and diary the last date for claims.
2. Stop the suit, arbitration, execution or Facilitation Council reference under section 14(1)(a), recording the stage each reached, since section 60(6) excludes the moratorium period from limitation.
3. Reconcile the ledger to the commencement date, invoice by invoice, with payments, debit and credit notes, and interest computed only to that date. This is the entry 4 figure.
4. Assemble the regulation 7(2) proof: purchase orders, invoices, delivery challans or completion certificates, GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B extracts, the section 8 notice and every acknowledgement email, page-numbered and listed in entry 11.
5. Download the current Form B from the link in the announcement, complete all eleven entries, disclose any dispute in entry 6 and any set-off in entry 8, and have an authorised signatory sign with the authority attached.
6. File by email and by post before the last date and keep the acknowledgement. If late, file at once under the proviso to regulation 12(1), with reasons if ninety days have passed.
7. Answer the regulation 13(1A) communication within days, supplementing under regulation 10, and inspect the regulation 13(2) list to check your admitted amount and the class's ten per cent position.
8. If the admitted amount stays wrong, apply under section 60(5) before the plan is voted, then check the filed plan against section 30(2)(b) and regulation 38(1)(a) and object at the section 31 hearing if the floor is breached.
9. In parallel pursue the guarantor and the section 138 complaint against the signatory director, update the claim under regulation 12A for anything recovered, and if a liquidation order is passed file afresh with the liquidator within thirty days.

How long will all this take?

Plan for a year from the admission order to the first rupee, and treat anything shorter as good fortune. Section 12(1) fixes the process at one hundred and eighty days, section 12(3) allows one extension of up to ninety days, and the second proviso sets an outer limit of three hundred and thirty days including time in litigation, from which Essar Steel struck the word "mandatorily" while expecting it ordinarily to be kept. The regulation 40A model timeline places the public announcement at day 3, the last date for claims at day 14, verification by day 21, the request for resolution plans by day 105 and approval by day 180. Payment follows approval on the schedule the plan fixes under regulation 38(2), and an appeal under section 61 can hold it. These are indicative ranges drawn from the statutory clocks, not a promise about any case.

The dates below are the ones that actually cut off rights.

Mistakes operational creditors make

The costliest mistake is silence: discovering after approval that section 31 and Ghanashyam Mishra have extinguished the debt. The second is a claim filed on time but naked, a ledger balance with no invoices. Ghanashyam Mishra's own record includes a government department whose Form B claim was refused for want of documents, a refusal upheld with costs. The third is claiming interest to the date of filing rather than to the commencement date, and the fourth is concealing a dispute that entry 6 asked for. The fifth is dropping the section 138 complaint or the suit on the guarantee because "the company is in NCLT", when section 14(3)(b) and P. Mohanraj keep both alive. The sixth is waiting for the plan to challenge a wrong admitted amount, when Essar Steel requires every claim to be decided first. The last is a credit note issued before the accountant and the claim agree.

Common mistake. Suppliers file the claim and then go quiet. The regulation 13(1A) communication, the regulation 13(2) list of creditors and the section 31 approval hearing are three later points at which the admitted amount and the floor can still be corrected, and none of them waits for a creditor who is not reading the notices.

If other buyers are also sitting on your invoices, the ordinary routes remain open against them and are set out in the practice note on what to do when a company is not paying an MSME invoice. For the buyer in CIRP, the claim, the section 60(5) application and the guarantor proceedings are best run as one file, which is how the firm's corporate and commercial practice and money recovery practice approach them.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.

Related Guides

Read with the firm's corporate and commercial law practice and money recovery practice.

• Operational Debt vs Financial Debt Under the IBC
• MSME Delayed Payment Recovery Under the MSMED Act, 2006: The 45-Day Rule, Interest and the Samadhaan Route
• Rs 6.25 Crore or Rs 1,500 Crore? Reading a Personal Guarantor Repayment Plan