NCLT Ahmedabad Admits BluSmart Subsidiary to Insolvency Over ₹5.84 Crore Google Maps Dues

Insolvency Ordered Against BluSmart’s Tech Arm

The order passed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Ahmedabad is given to one of the subsidiaries of the all-electric ride-hailing corporation, BluSmart. It has formally placed Blu-Smart Mobility Tech Private Limited in the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP). This case is based on a petition by one of the operational creditors on unpaid dues of ₹5.84 crore.

This order is acting as a suspension of the board of directors of the subsidiary. Instead, the NCLT has filled in the position with an Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) by the name of Mr. Pawan Kumar Goyal. IRP has now been mandated to assume full control of the company assets, finances and documents. Another order issued by the tribunal is a moratorium which is a legal freeze that prevents any other legal action, foreclosures or recovery of the company during the process of insolvency.

The action is untimely to the BluSmart group and the parent firm, Blu-Smart Mobility Limited is also said to be facing its insolvency process. The decision made by the NCLT was founded on the fact that it had found an evident level of operational debt and a default in the payment by Blu-Smart Mobility Tech. This case shows the increasing status and strength of operational creditors according to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in India.

The whole conflict is a section of a bigger complicated financial scenario of the BluSmart group and the respective firms. The parent company resolution professional is said to be already making efforts to take control of all subsidiaries including the tech arm. The idea is to strive towards a unified solution to the whole group which is suspected to be worth more when in pieces than what will be achieved when sold separately.

The ₹5.84 Crore Google Maps Dispute

Lepton Software Export and Research Private Limited is the creditor who initiated this case based on BluSmart subsidiary. The remaining charge of 5.84 crore is the services of Google Maps Platform. One of the authorised partners is Lepton Software, the seller and also the manager of Google Maps services, needed by any ride-sharing application, including navigating, route planning, and ride tracking.

The court petition contained an agreement of the service between Lepton and Blu-Smart Mobility Tech. This contract took effect in October 2022 and was extended to another year, which ended in September 30, 2024. Lepton also alleged that it still was still offering these key mapping services at ad-hoc basis even after the official renewal expired and that they still were in use by the tech arm of Blu-Smart.

The main case of the disagreement is the unpaid bills of the 2025 financial year. Lepton presented that they never paid these invoices representing services under the Terms of Use of Google. The aggregate principal was more than 5.39 crore and the balance of the sum was due to the contractual interest payments on the late payments. This default on debt payment services led to the foundation of the insolvency petition by Lepton.

The defence of Blu-Smart Mobility Tech was that invoices issued after the expiry date of the contract which was on September 30, 2024, could not be enforced. The company claimed that failing to accept formally or engage in a new contract meant that such claims could not be an operation debt according to the law. They argued that the petition was an abuse of the law process and it should not be granted.

The NCLT’s Decisive Ruling

The Ahmedabad branch of NCLT, which is led by Sanjeev Sharma and Shammi Khan, did not concur with the defense presented by BluSmart. The court meticulously analyzed the evidence, such as email messages between the two firms. It determined that Blu-Smart Mobility Tech had actually admitted its liability at least to a part of the dues having asserted a remaining amount of more than 30 lakh during the pre-expiry era.

More importantly, the NCLT indicated emails by Blu-Smart itself, dated in April 2025. These e-mails indicated that the company continued to use the services of Google Maps without complaint, invoice requests, and even acknowledged that they became liable. The tribunal concluded that this action constituted an ad-hoc extension of the arrangement by the same terms. This implied a contract according to the Indian law, which means that invoices which expired are valid.

Since the company had recognized some of the debt and had still utilized the services, the NCLT decided that a default of an operating debt had obviously taken place. The bench did not agree with the argument that there was no operating debt in the case of Blu-Smart. The tribunal maintained that the creditor, Lepton Software was to receive its dues and, thus, entered the company into the corporate insolvency procedure as requested under Section 9 of the IBC.

The order of the tribunal validated the fact that the debt was valid and defaulted on. It authoritatively concluded that a company cannot just continue to use a service when the service expires and thereafter fail to pay it citing that there is no valid contract. The usage and communication was a continuation that meant acceptance of the services and requirement to pay the services.

Fallout for the EV Ride-Hailing Group

This liquidation of the technology division adds to the financial difficulties already faced by the BluSmart group. Blu-Smart Mobility Tech Private Limited is not a small organization; it is an important subsidiary that possesses proprietary app, algorithms, and intellectual property (IP) of the company. As the NCLT observed, it has operations, which are mutually intertwined with the parent company and the rest of the subsidiaries, which own the vehicles and the charging infrastructure.

In July 2025, the parent company, the Blu-Smart Mobility Limited, was granted admission to insolvency. This has resulted in a cascade effect. The parent company has just a resolution professional that is attempting to obtain a hold on all four of its subsidiaries, such as the tech arm, the fleet company and the charging infrastructure company. This is aimed at arriving at an overall group resolution.

Already this legal turmoil has had practical implications on customers and the brand. Previously in 2025, BluSmart was in deep cash crunch, and had defaulted on a bond payment. That is another factor that the company had to pause the booking of rides on its app and inform customers that it had no vacancies.