Relief For Zomato As NCLT Dismisses Insolvency Plea Over Alleged Unpaid Dues

In a relief to Zomato, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has reportedly dismissed an insolvency plea filed against the foodtech major by B2B manufacturer Nona Lifestyle over alleged unpaid dues of INR 1.64 Cr.

A Bar and Bench report said that a coram of judicial member Ashok Kumar Bharadwaj and Technical Member Reena Sinha Puri dismissed the petition by Nona Lifestyle today (On March 03), seeking restoration of an insolvency plea filed by the company last year.

The bench ruled that the petition was in itself not maintainable as it was filed without serving a proper notice under section 8 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

The dismissal of the insolvency petition comes days after the petitioner (Nona Lifestyle) moved the NCLT which was originally filed in October 2024, alleging that the Deepinder Goyal-led company faltered on payments.

The matter dates back to 2023 when Nona Lifestyle bagged bulk orders from the Delhi NCR-based company for t-shirts and trousers for its employees and delivery partners, as part of the ICC World Cup 2023. Nona Lifestyle alleged that the company refused to accept orders and also threatened to give discounts.

Nona Lifestyle had initially knocked the doors of the NCLT to start insolvency proceedings against Zomato in October 2024 but the plea was turned down on non-prosecution grounds. A month later, the petitioner filed another plea at the NCLT to restore the insolvency proceedings.

While the petitioner said that it had fulfilled its commitment to manufacture and deliver the items in parts, as per the laid out agreement. However, Zomato claimed that the manufacturer failed to meet the required deadlines and altered it ‘unilaterally’ causing “substantial reputational and goodwill damage” to the company leading to jeopardising its World Cup campaign.

Nona Lifestyle is a B2B procurement-as-a-service platform which has a network of manufacturers and suppliers to procure and deliver industrial products serving various sectors such as FMCG, Hospitality and Logistics among others.

Though Zomato must be breathing some air of respite with the ruling, but it has other challenges to deal with.

The company has been witnessing sluggish from the last two quarters of the fiscal year ended March 31 2024-25 (FY25).

Zomato saw an increase of just 4% in its gross order value (GOV) on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis to INR 9,690 Cr for the food delivery business in the second quarter of FY25. While in Q3 FY25, the GOV increased by a mere 2.3% to INR 9,913 Cr. Moreover, the company’s transacting user base also witnessed a slow growth in the period under review.

In Q2 FY25, its transacting user base surged only 2% QoQ to 20.7 Mn while in Q3 FY25, it sequentially dropped 0.9% to 20.5 Mn. . In Q3 FY25, its consolidated net profit slumped 57.2% to INR 59 Cr from INR 138 Cr in the year-ago quarter. However, the operating revenue surged over 64% to INR 5,405 Cr from INR 3,288 Cr in the same quarter last year.

Zomato’s shares also ended in red today, closing 0.54% lower from the previous close at INR 210.85 on the BSE.

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