Karnataka High Court Directs Byju's RP To Preserve E-Mails, Communication Between Stakeholders For CIRP Purposes

The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the Resolution Profession presiding over the insolvency proceedings initiated against Think And Learn Private Limited (BYJUS) to preserve all the emails or conversations between all the stakeholders in the case at hand, which would be required for the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process.

A single judge, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the interim order on a petition filed by Byju Raveendra. It sai,d “The only prayers that can be granted at this juncture is directing R5 to preserve all the emails or conversation between all the stakeholders in the case at hand, which would be required for CIRP or for investigation as the case would be.”

Further the court rejected the prayers made in the petition directing the state government to freeze the CIPR proceedings and direct necessary processes in law to recover and restore all data deleted from the email "ip.byjus@outlook.com" and to preserve the same, for continuing the fair, proper and complete investigation in a crime registered by one of the power attorney holder of the company petitioner Crime # 44 of 2025 pending before the Higa Grounds Police Station, Bengaluru City, Karnataka;

The bench said “Those proceedings which the petitioner has sought to challenge, i.e minutes of the COC meeting or others has to be challenged before /NCLT or NCLAT. It is open to the petitioner to avail of that remedy. Therefore, all those prayers which challenge minutes of COC, stand rejected.”

The petitioner's counsel Shyam Mohan submitted that the earlier Resolution Professional has admitted certain things in his affidavit before the IBBI (Board) and R5 has now been appointed as RP.

Further it was said that in the light of the COC meeting held on April 8, the emails that would be required for future investigation in the matter should not be destroyed, as the proceedings would refer to the statement of the erstwhile RP (Pankaj Srivastava) that 2,392 emails were deleted from the process due to rearrangement of folders.

Thus it was prayed that if emails are deleted they are primary evidence of conversation or interaction between the companies with regard to the subject matter of the proceedings pending before the NCLT. Those mails should not be deleted and those mails are necessary for the purpose of investigation. Now that R5 (Resolution Professional) has been appointed he should be directed to preserve those emails.

The government advocate informed the court that investigation in Crime no 44/2025 (filed by one Rajendra Vellapalath) has been stayed by coordinate bench, in terms of order dated 17-03-2025, qua the accused there in, Therefore state has not proceeded to investigate the matter.

Senior Advocate Uday Holla, appearing for one of the respondents (M/s Glas Trust Company LLC) submitted that so far as preservation of mails by R5 would have no objection for preservation.

Following which the court said “Therefore, only prayer which merits consideration at this juncture is preservation of mails without any further loss of data.” Accordingly it passed the interim order and posted the matter for further hearing on April 21.