Byju’s proposed Rs 158 crore settlement with the Board of Control for Cricket in India remains unresolved, keeping the insolvency process around parent company Think & Learn in a state of uncertainty. The National Company Law Tribunal has paused the process of inviting buyers for Think & Learn while creditors continue to deliberate on the settlement. The creditor committee has met multiple times since March, including three meetings after a June 29 court order asking lenders to decide the matter quickly, but it has not reached a conclusion.
The settlement has become a decisive procedural issue. If creditors approve the settlement and the tribunal accepts it, the insolvency process against Think & Learn would end and the cricket board would receive the Rs 158 crore. If creditors reject the settlement, the amount, currently held in escrow, would return to Riju Ravindran, who funded it, and the insolvency proceedings would continue. The question is therefore not only whether one creditor is paid, but whether the corporate insolvency path remains active.
The delay is also linked to wider settlement discussions involving GLAS Trust, which represents US lenders, Byju’s founders, the Manipal group and Aakash Educational Services. Current discussions include the lenders negotiating for roughly 30% of Aakash as part of an arrangement aimed at ending litigation across India, the US and Singapore. Any transfer of Aakash shares to lenders would need to be implemented through a resolution plan for Think & Learn. If the BCCI settlement is approved first and insolvency ends, the creditor committee’s role could be removed. If it is rejected, the insolvency framework remains available for implementing a broader restructuring arrangement.
During the latest hearing, the creditor committee said it had met on June 29, July 16 and July 20, but needed more information on the source of funds, renewal of a bank guarantee and an application filed by Ravindran in the Supreme Court proceeding connected with the settlement. Ravindran’s counsel said source-of-funds questions had already been answered in an April 1 letter and argued that lenders could accept or reject the explanation but should not continue delaying a decision. The cricket board also opposed further delay, saying disputes among creditors, the resolution professional and former management should not hold up its withdrawal request.
The tribunal’s next hearing is scheduled for September 15. Until then, the company’s insolvency path, the BCCI settlement and the wider Aakash-linked settlement discussions remain intertwined. For India’s startup ecosystem, the case continues to be one of the most closely watched examples of how venture-backed scale, offshore debt, founder control, strategic assets and insolvency law can collide after a high-growth company loses financial and governance stability.
