Filing a Claim in a CIRP: The Forms and the Deadlines

A creditor proves in a corporate insolvency resolution process by submitting a claim with proof, on the form prescribed for its category of creditor, to the interim resolution professional on or before the last date stated in the public announcement made under Section 15 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. That date is the fourteenth day from the appointment of the interim resolution professional. A creditor who misses it may still file under the first proviso to Regulation 12(1) of the IBBI (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) Regulations 2016 — up to the date of issue of the request for resolution plans under Regulation 36B, or ninety days from the insolvency commencement date, whichever is later. A creditor who never files is not in the list of creditors, not on the committee, and — once a resolution plan is approved — generally has nothing left to recover.

The window is short, the forms are category-specific, and the penalty for getting either wrong is permanent. As an Advocate practising at the Delhi High Court and Senior Partner at Unified Chambers And Associates, the failure I see most often is not a badly argued claim but one filed on the wrong form, computed to the wrong date, or lodged after the committee has already voted. This note sets out where the deadline comes from, which of the six forms applies, what the claim must contain, how a belated claim is treated, and what the professional does with the paper once it arrives.

What starts the claim window, and when exactly does it close?

Section 13(1) of the Code requires the Adjudicating Authority, on admitting an application under Section 7, 9 or 10, to declare a moratorium, cause a public announcement calling for the submission of claims, and appoint an interim resolution professional. Section 15(1) prescribes the contents of that announcement: the corporate debtor's name and address, the authority with which it is registered, the last date for submission of claims, the details of the professional receiving them, the penalties for false or misleading claims, and the date on which the process shall close — the 180th day from admission unless extended.

Regulation 6 of the CIRP Regulations 2016 supplies the mechanics. Regulation 6(1) requires the announcement to be made immediately on appointment, which the regulation treats as within three days, in Form A; Regulation 6(2)(c) fixes the last date for submission of claims at the fourteenth day from the date of appointment of the interim resolution professional. Regulation 6(2)(b) requires publication in one English and one regional language newspaper of wide circulation at the registered and principal offices of the corporate debtor and any other location where it conducts material business operations, on the corporate debtor's own website if it has one, and on the website designated by the Board.

One structural change is worth noting at the outset, because it affects every form named in this note. Schedule I to the CIRP Regulations, which formerly set out the process forms, was omitted by the IBBI (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) (Third Amendment) Regulations 2026, notified on 1 June 2026. Regulations 6, 7, 8, 8A, 9 and 9A no longer name a form printed in a Schedule; each now requires submission "in such form as notified by the Board through circular". The form designations survive — the Board's notified forms are still Form A, B, C, CA, D, E and F — but the operative text of each is the circular version current on the date of filing, not a version printed in the Regulations. Download the form from the Board's site rather than reusing a copy from an earlier matter.

Two dates therefore matter and they are not the same. The insolvency commencement date is the date of admission, under Section 5(12). Section 16(1) requires the interim resolution professional to be appointed within fourteen days of it. Usually the appointment is made in the admission order and the two coincide; where they do not, the fourteen-day claim clock runs from appointment while the ninety-day limb of the belated-claim window runs from commencement.

The model timeline in Regulation 40A sets out how the process runs, measured from the insolvency commencement date.

Nothing in that sequence waits for a creditor. A supplier who learns of the admission from the trade press in week four has already missed the date. Where an account is stressed, the discipline is to monitor the National Company Law Tribunal cause lists and the Board's website, not to wait for a newspaper notice to reach the right desk.

Which proof-of-claim form applies?

The CIRP Regulations prescribe a different form for each category of creditor, and the categories are statutory, not descriptive. A creditor cannot elect the form that suits it.

Form B and Form C — the operational and financial divide

This division decides far more than the form number. It decides whether the creditor sits on the committee of creditors at all.

An operational debt is defined by Section 5(21) as a claim in respect of the provision of goods or services, including employment, or dues arising under any law and payable to the Central Government, a State Government or a local authority. The holder is an operational creditor under Section 5(20) and files Form B, proving the debt under Regulation 7(2) through information utility records, or through the supply contract, an invoice demanding payment, financial accounts, an order adjudicating the non-payment, or — following the 2026 amendments — GST returns in Form GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B and the relevant e-way bills. The GST route is the useful one in practice, because it produces a contemporaneous third-party record of the supply that neither party controls.

A financial debt is defined by Section 5(8) as a debt along with interest, if any, disbursed against the consideration for the time value of money, followed by an enumeration of what it includes — borrowings, notes and bonds, deferred payment for property, finance leases, discounted receivables, amounts raised from real estate allottees, derivative exposures, and liability under a guarantee or indemnity for any of those. The holder is a financial creditor under Section 5(7) and files Form C in electronic form, proving the debt under Regulation 8(2) through information utility records, a financial contract supported by financial statements, a record showing the committed amount has been drawn, or an adjudicatory order.

Form C requires details of any security interest held, its value and its date of creation, because that information governs the creditor's treatment at the other end of the process — under Section 30(2) in a resolution, or under the Section 53 waterfall in a liquidation. A secured lender that files a bare figure and omits the charge particulars weakens a position it has already paid for. How a financial creditor reaches this point is set out in the note on Section 7 admission; the operational creditor's pre-filing step is covered in the note on the Section 9 demand notice.

Form CA — financial creditors in a class

Where financial debt is owed to a large number of similarly placed creditors — allottees in a real estate project, deposit holders, debenture holders — the Code does not seat each of them individually. Section 21(6A)(b) requires the interim resolution professional to apply to the Adjudicating Authority for appointment of an insolvency professional as the authorised representative of that class, and Section 25A governs how the class vote is cast. Such a creditor files Form CA under Regulation 8A, in electronic form, proving the debt through information utility records or other documents evidencing its existence, including an agreement for sale, a letter of allotment or a receipt of payment. Two features of Form CA are routinely missed:

• The form requires the claimant to **select one of the three insolvency professionals offered in the public announcement** as authorised representative for the class. The chain is worth getting right: Regulation 4A requires the interim resolution professional to ascertain the classes and identify three eligible and willing insolvency professionals for each, Regulation 6(2)(bb) requires that choice of three to be offered in the public announcement, and Regulation 16A(1) provides that the professional who is the choice of the highest number of creditors in the class is selected. A claimant who leaves the box blank forfeits its only say in who carries its vote — and a choice expressed in a belated Form CA is not counted in that tally.
• Homebuyers frequently confuse the threshold for **initiating** a process with the threshold for **proving** in one. The second proviso to Section 7(1) requires an application by allottees to be filed jointly by not less than one hundred allottees under the same real estate project or ten per cent of the total number of such allottees, whichever is less — but that governs filing. A single allottee may submit a Form CA claim in a process someone else has commenced.

Forms D, E and F — workmen, employees and everyone else

Regulation 9(1) provides that a workman or employee submits a claim with proof in Form D, and Regulation 9(2) that where dues are owed to numerous workmen or employees an authorised representative may submit one claim for all such dues in Form E — in a manufacturing insolvency, the only workable route. Regulation 9(3) allows the dues to be proved through information utility records, a contract of employment for the period claimed, evidence of a notice demanding payment with proof of non-payment, or an adjudicatory order. The distinction between "workman" and "employee" is not cosmetic: it carries through to the liquidation waterfall in Section 53(1), where workmen's dues for the twenty-four months preceding the liquidation commencement date rank alongside secured creditors who have relinquished security, while other employees' dues for the preceding twelve months rank a step below.

Regulation 9A is residual. A creditor not covered by Regulations 7, 8, 8A or 9 files Form F, proved through information utility records or other documents sufficient to establish the claim. It catches decree holders whose decree does not arise from goods or services, claimants under a statutory liability that is neither operational nor financial, and parties with contingent or unliquidated claims. Using Form F does not concede the characterisation; where it is genuinely arguable, state the basis on which the higher category is asserted.

What must the claim contain, and as of what date?

Regulation 13(1) requires every claim to be verified as on the insolvency commencement date. That single phrase determines the arithmetic, and it is where most admitted-amount disputes originate.

Compute to the commencement date, not to today. Principal, interest and contractual charges crystallise at admission; interest accruing afterwards is not part of the claim. Regulation 15 requires a foreign currency claim to be converted at the official exchange rate as on that same date.

Post-commencement dues are not claims at all. A supplier that continues to supply after admission — under Section 14(2) or Section 14(2A), or at the professional's request — is not proving a debt. Those amounts are insolvency resolution process cost under Section 5(13) read with Regulation 31, paid in priority under Section 30(2)(a) in a resolution and sitting at the top of the Section 53 waterfall in a liquidation. Rolling post-admission invoices into Form B converts a priority entitlement into an ordinary operational claim. The freeze behind this is set out in the note on the Section 14 moratorium.

Contingent and imprecise claims are estimated, not excluded. Regulation 14(1) requires the professional, where the amount claimed is not precise due to a contingency or other reason, to make the best estimate on the information available, and Regulation 14(2) requires revision when further information warrants it. A guarantee not yet invoked, an indemnity claim or a disputed damages claim should be quantified as best it can be and the basis stated, not left off the form.

The declaration is not a formality. Regulation 10 permits the professional to call for such other evidence or clarification as he deems fit, and under Regulation 11 the creditor bears the cost of proving its own debt. Section 15(1)(e) requires the announcement to state the penalties for false or misleading claims, each form carries a verified declaration, and Section 235A supplies a residual penalty for contraventions for which no specific punishment is provided.

What happens to a claim submitted after the last date?

This is the part of the subject most often stated wrongly, because it was rewritten in 2023 and the older rule is still widely repeated. Regulation 12 formerly carried a sub-regulation 12(2) fixing a hard outer limit at the ninetieth day of the insolvency commencement date. That sub-regulation was omitted by the IBBI (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) (Second Amendment) Regulations 2023 with effect from 18 September 2023, and the belated-claim rule was recast as provisos to Regulation 12(1).

Regulation 12(1) requires a creditor to submit its claim with proof on or before the last date mentioned in the public announcement. The first proviso allows a creditor who fails to do so to submit the claim with proof to the interim resolution professional or the resolution professional up to the date of issue of the request for resolution plans under Regulation 36B, or ninety days from the insolvency commencement date, whichever is later. The second proviso requires the creditor to give reasons for delay in submitting the claim beyond ninety days from the insolvency commencement date.

Two consequences follow from the "whichever is later" formulation. The window is now variable rather than fixed: in the model timeline the request for resolution plans issues at T+105, so the practical outer date is usually later than ninety days, but in a fast process it can be earlier and the ninety-day floor then governs. And the trigger is an event in someone else's control — the date the request for resolution plans actually issues in that CIRP — so a creditor relying on the extended limb must find out when that document went out rather than assume a figure.

Regulation 12(3) deals with the consequence for a late financial creditor: one falling within the first proviso to Regulation 12(1), and filing as a financial creditor under Regulation 8, is included in the committee from the date its claim is admitted, with a proviso that the inclusion shall not affect the validity of any decision the committee has already taken. The creditor gets its seat, but takes the committee as it finds it — one admitted late does not reopen the appointment of the resolution professional, the appointment of valuers, or a completed expression-of-interest process.

Beyond that window the position does not close absolutely, but it moves out of the creditor's hands. Regulation 13(1B) requires the professional to verify claims received after the Regulation 12 period, up to seven days before the date of the meeting of creditors called to vote on a resolution plan or on initiation of liquidation, and to categorise each as acceptable or non-acceptable for collation. Regulation 13(1C) then requires the professional to intimate the creditor within seven days of that categorisation, giving reasons where the claim is categorised as non-acceptable, and to put acceptable and collated claims to the committee at its next meeting for a recommendation on inclusion in the list of creditors and on treatment in the resolution plan — and to place them before the Adjudicating Authority for condonation of delay and adjudication wherever applicable.

That is a route, not an entitlement. The claim is admitted only if the delay is condoned, condonation is for the Adjudicating Authority on the facts — the stage the process has reached, the reason for the delay, and the prejudice to the resolution applicant and to creditors who did file on time — and the door shuts entirely once the committee has voted on a plan. It is not a discretion to plan around. Because the Regulations are amended frequently, the operative text of Regulations 12 and 13 should be checked on the date the claim is submitted.

What does the resolution professional do with the claim?

Section 18(1)(b) makes it the duty of the interim resolution professional to receive and collate all the claims submitted pursuant to the public announcement, and Section 18(1)(c) to constitute a committee of creditors.

Regulation 13(1) requires verification of every claim, as on the insolvency commencement date, within seven days from the last date of receipt of claims, and a list of creditors recording each creditor's name, the amount claimed, the amount admitted and the security interest held. Regulation 13(1A), as amended with effect from June 2026, requires the professional after verification to admit or reject the claim, in whole or in part, and to communicate that decision with reasons within seven days — a meaningful improvement for a creditor, because silence is no longer a tenable response and a reasoned rejection gives something concrete to challenge. Under Regulation 13(2) the list of creditors is open to inspection by those who submitted claims and by the corporate debtor's members, directors and guarantors, displayed on the corporate debtor's website, filed on the Board's electronic platform, filed with the Adjudicating Authority, and presented at the committee's first meeting. Regulation 17(1) requires a report certifying the constitution of the committee to be filed within two days of verification.

Section 21(1) requires the professional, after collation of claims and determination of the corporate debtor's financial position, to constitute the committee of creditors, comprising under Section 21(2) all financial creditors — with the first proviso denying a related-party financial creditor any right of representation, participation or voting. The admitted amount is what converts into influence: Section 5(28) defines "voting share" as the proportion the financial debt owed to a creditor bears to the total financial debt, and Section 21(8) requires committee decisions to be taken by not less than fifty-one per cent of voting share unless the Code provides otherwise. Section 22(1) requires the first meeting within seven days of constitution.

Two qualifications follow. Where the corporate debtor has no financial creditors, or all its financial creditors are related parties, Regulation 16 builds the committee from the eighteen largest unrelated operational creditors by value — all of them if there are fewer than eighteen — plus one representative each for the remaining workmen and employees. The word "unrelated" was inserted by the Fourth Amendment Regulations of June 2026, so related-party operational creditors no longer occupy places in that count. And operational creditors off the committee still get notice of its meetings under Section 24(3)(c) where their aggregate dues are not less than ten per cent of the debt.

One boundary is worth stating plainly. The resolution professional verifies, admits or rejects, and collates; the role is administrative and carries no power to adjudicate a disputed claim. A creditor whose claim is rejected, or admitted at a figure it does not accept, applies to the Adjudicating Authority, which has jurisdiction under Section 60(5) over any question of priorities and any question of law or fact arising in relation to the insolvency resolution process. Correspondence is worth exhausting first, but it is not the remedy.

What actually happens if a creditor does not file?

Nothing, and that is the point.

The claim is not in the list of creditors under Regulation 13. A financial creditor has no seat and no voting share, and so no say in the appointment of the resolution professional, the extension of the process, or the approval of a plan. An operational creditor has no entitlement to notice under Section 24(3)(c) and no figure against which the minimum payment under Section 30(2)(b) is computed.

Then the door closes. Section 31(1) provides that an approved resolution plan binds the corporate debtor and its employees, members, creditors — including the Central Government, any State Government or any local authority to whom a statutory due is owed — guarantors and other stakeholders. It is settled that on approval, claims not forming part of the approved plan stand extinguished, and no person may commence or continue a proceeding in respect of such a claim. That principle is what makes plans biddable; it is also what makes a missed claim unrecoverable. Nor is a creditor carried across automatically if the process ends in liquidation: Section 38(1) requires the liquidator to receive or collect claims within thirty days of the liquidation commencement date, and they are submitted afresh under the liquidation regulations.

Two collateral positions survive. Section 14(3)(b) places sureties in a contract of guarantee outside the moratorium, so a creditor holding a personal guarantee retains that route while the process runs — see the note on personal guarantor insolvency. And a Recovery Certificate holder cannot execute against the corporate debtor once the moratorium is in force, but is a financial creditor entitled to prove; abandoning the claim in favour of continued execution is the worst of both outcomes, as the note on Recovery Certificate execution explains.

A filing checklist

1. Fix both dates from the admission order and Form A — the insolvency commencement date under Section 5(12), and the date of appointment of the interim resolution professional. The fourteen-day claim date runs from the second; the ninety-day limb of the belated-claim window runs from the first.

2. Categorise the debt against Section 5(7), 5(8), 5(20) and 5(21) before choosing a form. The category is statutory, and the form follows it.

3. Use the current form and the correct mode. Since Schedule I was omitted in June 2026 the forms are those notified by the Board through circular, so download the live version rather than reusing an old copy. Forms C and CA go in electronic form; on Form CA, record the choice of authorised representative from the three professionals offered in the announcement.

4. Compute as at the insolvency commencement date: stop interest there, convert foreign currency at that day's official rate, and estimate contingent amounts under Regulation 14 rather than omitting them. Keep post-commencement supplies out and track them as process cost under Regulation 31.

5. Attach the proof the relevant regulation contemplates, and state the security interest, its value and its date of creation where security is held.

6. Submit by a mode that produces an acknowledgement, retain the record, and inspect the Regulation 13(2) list to confirm the entry. Insist on the Regulation 13(1A) communication of admission or rejection with reasons; where the admitted amount differs materially and correspondence does not resolve it, consider an application under Section 60(5).

7. If the announcement date has already passed, do not treat the claim as lost. Establish whether the request for resolution plans under Regulation 36B has issued, file under the first proviso to Regulation 12(1) with a stated explanation for the delay, and — if even that window has closed — file while the Regulation 13(1B) route remains open, understanding that admission then depends on condonation by the Adjudicating Authority.

Institutions running a portfolio of stressed accounts should treat the fourteen-day window as a standing operational control; the documentation expectations that follow are set out for banks, NBFCs and ARCs. Broader context is in the IBC guide, the terms above are defined in the legal glossary, the forums are described in the note on courts and tribunals, and stressed-account work generally is covered under NPA resolution.

This article is general information on the law as it stands and is not legal advice; the form, computation and timing of a claim depend on the category of creditor and the facts of the account, and the CIRP Regulations are amended frequently. Queries may be directed through the contact page.