Creditors are pushing for liquidation of Alok Industries Ltd. and Jyoti Structures Ltd. -- which together owe about 380 billion rupees ($5.8 billion) -- as they aren’t happy with bids for the debt-laden companies, said people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported. The only binding bid for textile firm Alok is one from Reliance Industries Ltd. and JM Financial ARC, which offers a price that’s too low for the lenders, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is private. They didn’t provide further details. Alok owes 299 billion rupees, according to official data.

Nearly a third of the companies have defaulted on the loans they have taken from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). These loans were extended on “easy terms” towards developing new technologies, and to encourage start-ups, The Hindu reported. They were awarded as part of an ongoing scheme since 2001, according to a response by Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan to a question in the Lok Sabha.

Billionaire Lakshmi Mittal’s ArcelorMittal will on Wednesday challenge in court the legitimacy of a bid for Essar Steel India Ltd. by a group led by VTB Capital, intensifying the battle for the biggest industry asset yet to be sold under a new bankruptcy law, Bloomberg News reported. Mittal’s steelmaker has several reasons to question the eligibility of the VTB-led Numetal Ltd. group, including that Aurora Enterprises was part of the consortium at the time of an initial round of bidding, Brian Aranha, an executive president at ArcelorMittal, said in an interview in Mumbai.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India has tightened the entry barriers for insolvency professionals by bringing in a new set of austere amendments with effect from April 1 which will ensure that only seasoned professionals are allowed to function, The Economic Times reported. With these measures, a bunch of 76 home-grown insolvency professional entities (IPEs), a kind of boutique firm, are now staring at a better prospect over their peers.

Three bidders, including two new players, have submitted resolution plans after lenders called for fresh bids in Essar Steel Ltd.’s insolvency process, Bloomberg News reported. These include a joint venture between ArcelorMittal India and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp, Nu Metal & Steel Pvt. Ltd, in which JSW Steel is an investor, and the Vedanta Group, according to two people in the know who spoke to BloombergQuint on the condition of anonymity. Of the three, ArcelorMittal-Suitomo JV had participated in the earlier bidding as well.

Tata Steel Ltd. has offered Rs 35,200 crore in cash, and conversion of the remaining debt of about Rs 27,000 crore into equity, to take over Bhushan Steel Ltd., the counsel for the committee of creditors informed NCLT today, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors will get 12.27 percent equity in Bhushan Steel, Senior Advocate Ravi Kadam told the principal bench of the National Company Law Tribunal. “Tata Steel is the highest bidder (H1) offering an upfront payment of Rs 35,200 crore. Remaining debt would be converted into equity,” he said.

Private lender ICICI Bank said it will convene a board meeting on Monday to review cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code which are before the National Company Law Tribunal along with other routine matters, The Business Standard reported. "ICICI Bank's Board meeting being held today is a pre-scheduled board meeting convened for review of cases which are before the National Company Law Tribunal under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and other routine matters," the private bank said in a regulatory filing to the BSE.

India’s Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd will try for a third time to sell sugar mills it owns in Brazil at an auction as part of a recovery plan in its in-court debt restructuring, according to court documents seen by Reuters. Renuka, which entered Brazil in 2010 and owns four sugar and ethanol plants in the country, presented a new plan to the court overseeing its bankruptcy protection case that proposed to sell the Revati or Madhu mills located in Sao Paulo state, or possibly both, Reuters reported.

A massive $32 billion bailout package for India's dominant state-run banks will not happen again and lenders will have to find their own funding by selling non-core assets and merging with each other, a senior government official said on Monday. Twenty-one banks, majority owned by New Delhi, account for more than two-thirds of the banking assets in Asia's third-biggest economy, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. These lenders also account for close to 90 percent of soured loans in the banking sector.

Vedanta Limited on Saturday informed stock exchanges that it had received a letter of intent (LoI) for Electrosteel Steels. Vedanta had accepted the terms of the LoI and closure of the transaction would be subject to compliance with applicable regulatory requirements and in accordance with the final terms approved by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the company said in a statement to the exchanges, Business Standard reported. Though Vedanta did not disclose the bid value, it is believed to have offered Rs 55 billion for Electrosteel Steels, which owes banks Rs 103 billion.