The Man Behind India's Biggest Insolvency Battles: The Untold Story of Bikki Raveendra Babu

Some people study the law. Some people practice it. And then there are those rare few who actually shape it. Who sit at the crossroads of history and write orders that change how an entire nation does business. Shri Bikki Raveendra Babu belongs to that rare category.

His name may not trend on social media. You won't find him giving flashy interviews on prime time television. But ask any serious insolvency lawyer in this country, any banker who has fought a bad loan battle, any resolution professional who has walked into a committee of creditors meeting, and they will tell you the same thing. This man's orders rewrote the rules of Indian capitalism.

Before the Tribunal Even Existed

To understand the weight of what Bikki Raveendra Babu achieved, you need to understand what India looked like before the NCLT came into existence.

Banks were drowning. Non performing assets had crossed ₹10 lakh crore. Promoters who owed thousands of crores to the banking system were living in mansions while public money rotted on balance sheets. The Company Law Board was overwhelmed. Courts moved at a pace that made recovery almost meaningless. Creditors waited years. Sometimes decades. And often got nothing.

The country needed a revolution. Not a political one. A legal one.

In 2016, when the government finally established the National Company Law Tribunal after fourteen years of deliberation, it wasn't just creating another court. It was building the backbone of a new economic order. An order where defaulters would face consequences. Where creditors would get a fair hearing. Where sick companies could either be revived or wound up in a time bound manner.

But institutions are only as strong as the people who run them. And the government knew that the founding members of this tribunal would set the tone for decades to come.

Bikki Raveendra Babu was among the sixteen judicial members chosen for this mission. Not fifty. Not a hundred. Sixteen. For the entire country.

The Weight of Being First

There is a particular kind of courage that comes with being first. When you are the second or third person to do something, you have footsteps to follow. You have precedent. You have someone else's mistakes to learn from.

The founding members of the NCLT had none of that.

Every order they wrote was a first. Every interpretation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was being done for the first time in Indian legal history. Every decision carried the risk of being challenged, overturned, or criticized. And every decision also carried the potential to become the foundation on which thousands of future cases would rest.

Bikki Raveendra Babu didn't just survive this pressure. He thrived under it. Across three of India's most important commercial benches, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, and Hyderabad, he delivered orders that became reference points for tribunals, high courts, and even the Supreme Court.

Ahmedabad: Where the Giants Fell

If there is one chapter of Bikki Raveendra Babu's career that history will remember most vividly, it is his time at the NCLT Ahmedabad Bench.

This is where the Reserve Bank of India's famous "dirty dozen" cases started landing. Twelve of India's biggest corporate defaulters, identified by the RBI itself, were pushed into insolvency proceedings. Several of them ended up before Bikki Raveendra Babu.

Essar Steel owed more than ₹45,000 crore to a consortium of 22 banks. Let that number sink in for a moment. Forty five thousand crore rupees. That is more than the annual budget of some Indian states. When SBI and Standard Chartered Bank filed for insolvency, Essar pushed back hard. Their lawyers argued that a restructuring plan was already underway. That the tribunal should not interfere. That the IBC should not apply.

Bikki Raveendra Babu's bench rejected every single one of those arguments. The case was admitted. An interim resolution professional was appointed. The entire corporate world watched in disbelief. If Essar Steel, one of the most powerful industrial houses in the country, could not escape the IBC, then the law truly had teeth.

Legal commentators called it the order that gave the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code its spine. Industry observers said it had national implications that would echo through every boardroom and every bank headquarters in India.

And he was not done.

Alok Industries, one of India's largest textile companies, was next. SBI filed for insolvency. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of the world's largest banks, tried to intervene and get the proceedings stopped. The argument was that there was ongoing litigation in the Bombay High Court and the NCLT should wait.

The bench chaired by Bikki Raveendra Babu dismissed that plea. The proceedings went forward. The message to the world was unmistakable. India's insolvency process would not be held ransom by delay tactics, no matter how powerful the entity behind them.

ABG Shipyard followed. ICICI Bank filed against the company for defaulting on more than ₹4,500 crore. The bench admitted the petition and appointed an interim resolution professional from one of the world's largest accounting firms. Another domino fell.

In a span of just a few months in 2017, sitting in a courtroom in Ahmedabad, one man presided over insolvency admissions worth more than ₹50,000 crore combined. There are entire economies that are smaller than that number.

Allahabad: Where the Common Man Found Hope

The Ahmedabad orders made headlines in business newspapers. But the cases at the Allahabad Bench touched the hearts of ordinary Indians.

Jaypee Infratech was not just a corporate default. It was a human tragedy. Tens of thousands of middle class families in Noida and Greater Noida had poured their life savings into apartments that were never delivered. Young couples who had taken home loans expecting to move in within two years were still paying EMIs five and six years later, with nothing to show for it except half constructed towers and broken promises.

When insolvency proceedings were initiated against Jaypee Infratech at the Allahabad Bench where Bikki Raveendra Babu served, it wasn't just about recovering bank loans. It was about giving these families a chance. A chance to either get their homes or get their money back through a proper, legally supervised process.

Rotomac Global brought another dimension entirely. The Enforcement Directorate got involved. Questions of financial fraud and money laundering were raised. The liquidation proceedings before the Allahabad Bench had to navigate not just insolvency law but its complex intersection with criminal enforcement.

Through all of this, the orders that came from the bench were careful, legally sound, and firmly grounded in the text of the IBC. No shortcuts. No populism. Just the law, applied with precision.

Hyderabad: The Continuing Legacy

After Ahmedabad and Allahabad, Bikki Raveendra Babu served at the NCLT Hyderabad Bench, where he continued hearing a wide range of corporate disputes. Banks versus energy companies. Technology firms entangled in shareholder battles. Debt recovery proceedings that had been stuck in the system for years.

By this point, his reputation preceded him. Lawyers who appeared before him knew they were standing in front of someone who understood the IBC not from a textbook but from having applied it in some of the most complex and high pressure situations imaginable.

The Next Chapter

Every great career has turning points. Moments where a person could easily rest on their achievements and step away. Bikki Raveendra Babu chose differently.

After completing his tenure as a founding Judicial Member of the NCLT, he did something that speaks to the depth of his commitment to the legal profession. He returned to the Bar. He picked up his robes again. And he began appearing as a practicing advocate before the very tribunal he helped build.

NCLT Hyderabad cause lists from 2023, 2024, and 2025 show his name appearing regularly as counsel in insolvency and corporate matters. He is back in the arena. Only this time, he is fighting from the other side.

Think about what that means for a client. Your lawyer is not someone who has merely studied the IBC or argued a handful of cases under it. Your lawyer is someone who interpreted the Code when it was brand new. Who admitted insolvency petitions worth tens of thousands of crores. Who knows exactly how a bench thinks because he was the bench.

That kind of experience cannot be hired from a law firm's brochure. It can only come from a life lived inside the courtroom.

Why India Needs Legal Minds Like Him

India's insolvency ecosystem is still evolving. New amendments keep coming. NCLAT and Supreme Court judgments keep refining the law. Cross border insolvency questions are getting more complex. Pre packaged insolvency for MSMEs is still finding its footing.

In this evolving landscape, people like Bikki Raveendra Babu are not just lawyers or former judges. They are institutional memory. They carry within them the founding philosophy of why the NCLT was created and what it was meant to achieve.

When a young lawyer reads the Essar Steel order and wonders about the reasoning behind it, the man who wrote that reasoning is still very much active. Still very much available. Still very much in the fight.

The Quiet Architect

India loves to celebrate its loud achievers. The ones who give speeches. The ones who write op eds. The ones who appear on panel discussions with bright studio lights behind them.

But the real architects of change are often quieter. They sit in courtrooms with files stacked to the ceiling. They read through thousands of pages of financial documents. They listen to arguments for hours. And then they write orders that change the direction of entire industries.

Bikki Raveendra Babu is one of those quiet architects. He did not seek fame. He sought justice. And in doing so, he helped build an institution that has recovered lakhs of crores for Indian banks, saved thousands of jobs through successful resolutions, and given hope to creditors who had given up.

From the founding days of the NCLT to the landmark Essar Steel order. From the homebuyers of Jaypee to the complexities of Rotomac. From the bench to the bar. His journey is not just a career. It is a chapter in the story of modern Indian law.

And that chapter is still being written.