Jaiprakash Associates: ₹5.44 trillion of claims, 2.8% recovery, equity wiped

Jaiprakash Associates, the parent of the Jaypee group that built the Yamuna Expressway and spread into cement, power, sports and real estate, defaulted on loans of over ₹55,000 crore. State Bank of India's petition, originally filed in 2018, was admitted by the NCLT only in June 2024, opening one of India's largest insolvency proceedings. By the end, total admitted claims against JAL stood at ₹5.44 trillion.

The sale came down to payment speed. Vedanta's bid was nominally richer — about ₹17,926 crore, or ₹12,505 crore on a net-present-value basis, spread over five years. Adani Enterprises offered ₹14,535 crore (₹15,343 crore realisable) with roughly ₹6,000 crore upfront and the rest within two years. The committee of creditors voted 93.8% for Adani in November 2025. Vedanta protested that JAL's liquidation value, ₹15,799.53 crore, exceeded what Adani would deliver — and lost at every level.

The NCLT's Allahabad bench approved Adani's plan in March 2026; the NCLAT dismissed Vedanta's challenge in May 2026. Under the plan, all existing shares were cancelled with no payout — the company itself noted the liquidation value would not satisfy secured creditors, so shareholders ranked below nothing. Jaiprakash Associates was delisted from the BSE and NSE on June 18, 2026, and its roughly 6.5 lakh retail shareholders received nil consideration.

₹5.44 trillion of admitted claims; creditors recovering about 2.8%; 6.5 lakh shareholders' equity cancelled for nil; delisted June 18, 2026

The group financed expressways, cement plants, power projects and townships on debt, and servicing the interest depended on refinancing that dried up after the 2018 default.

Legal challenge substituted for asset sales: petitions and stay orders kept JAL out of insolvency from 2018 to 2024 while claims compounded to ₹5.44 trillion.

The committee of creditors valued certainty of cash over headline size, choosing Adani's two-year payout over Vedanta's five-year schedule despite the higher nominal bid.

The arithmetic of the collapse was stark: realisable value of about ₹15,343 crore against ₹5.44 trillion of claims — roughly 2.8 paise on the rupee.

A leveraged group that litigates instead of selling assets turns a solvency problem into a wipe-out: ₹55,000 crore of defaults compounded into ₹5.44 trillion of claims, with little left to divide.

Adani Enterprises, implementable through itself or group vehicles including Adani Power, took control of JAL’s remaining assets. SBI-led lenders transferred ₹12,700 crore of debt to NARCL during the process, making it the largest creditor. Vedanta, which asked the NCLT to review the lenders’ choice in January 2026 and moved the NCLAT in April, saw its plea dismissed on May 4, 2026 as devoid of merit. Equity holders — about 6.5 lakh of them — were fully cancelled and the stock was delisted on June 18, 2026, closing one of the largest value-destroying insolvencies in Indian markets.