Srinagar Banihal Expressway Ltd. ...Respondent For Appellant: Shri Sameer Rastogi, Advocate For Respondent: Shri Mahfooz Nazki and Shri Zain Maqbool, Advocates ORDER 13.01.2020 Heard Counsel for the Appellant Operational Creditor as well as the learned Counsel for the Respondent Corporate Debtor. 2. The Appellant is an MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise) and filed Section 9 Application under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC in short) against the Respondent. The Appellant claimed in the Application that the Corporate Debtor is a special purpose vehicle company incorporated for execution of project, that is, rehabilitation, strengthening and four laning of Srinagar to Banihal section in the State of J&K. The Appellant claimed that in 2014, an engagement letter dated 21st November, 2014 was signed between the Operational Creditor and the Corporate Debtor and fee was fixed at Rs.22 Lakhs for availing project monitoring services, which were to be rendered by the Appellant. The Appellant raised invoices between 24.11.2014 till 16th February, 2017 and the Corporate Debtor had released payments up to 6th 2 October, 2016. The Appellant claimed that part payment was due and the Appellant sent Notice under Section 8 of IBC on 21st January, 2019 (Page 94) referring to the invoices due and outstanding and sought to recover the dues for services rendered. In spite of the Notice, the Respondent did not pay and thus, Section 9 Application was moved under IBC. 3. The learned Counsel for the Respondent refers to the Reply which was filed by the Respondent before the Adjudicating Authority (National Company Law Tribunal, Hyderabad Bench, Hyderabad). According to the Counsel, the Appellant had approached Delhi MSME Facilitation Council for the same purpose for which Section 9 Application was moved. The Respondent Corporate Debtor claimed that the Corporate Debtor had been instructed by the MSME to conciliate the alleged dispute with the Operational Creditor and Corporate Debtor had sent Reply dated 4th March, 2019 (Page 90) and refuted all the allegations made by the Operational Creditor. According to the Respondent, when reference was made by the Appellant to MSME Council, that itself showed that there was dispute and the arbitration proceedings under the MSME Council are to be initiated and thus the Application under Section 9 was liable to be rejected. 4. The Adjudicating Authority heard the parties and rejected the Section 9 Application observing in para 5 of the Impugned Order as under: "5. It is the case of petitioner that various invoices were raised from 24.11.2014 till 16.02.2017 and the Corporate Debtor has released payments for the services in full up to 06.10.2016 and there was a substantial delay in making part payment and the amount in default is Rs.73,52,122.92/. On perusal of Company Appeal (AT) (Ins) No.1142 of 2019 3 record by this Adjudicating Authority, it is observed that the Petitioner themselves in the petition has stated that the subject matter has already been taken to the MSME facilitation council for redressal in terms of MSME Development Act, 2016 and Arbitration proceedings between the Operational Creditor and Corporate Debtor have been commenced with the failure of conciliation between the parties as per section 18(3) of the MSME Development Act, 2006. Furthermore, the Corporate Debtor has also sent a reply on 07.02.2019, to the demand notice dated 21.01.2019, sent by the Operational Creditor raising the preexisting dispute with regards to the amount claimed to the demand notice. The Adjudicating Authority has already held that the pendency of the Application before MSME establishes preexisting dispute as long as the dispute is not spurious, hypothetical or illusory but an admitted fact on record. (Shrishti Electromech Pvt. Ltd. Vs Vijay Home Appliances Pvt Ltd in CP(IB) No.396/9/HDB/2018). In the case in hand, the Petitioner Company itself had admitted to t