The National Company Law Tribunal on Thursday (NCLT) stayed its own order allowing the government to prosecute the three partners of Deloitte and BSR Associates for their alleged culpability in the IL&FS fraud case — following a plea to allow them to appeal at the appellate tribunal.

Staying its own order of July 18, the Mumbai NCLT gave 10 days to Udayan Sen and Kalpesh Mehta of Deloitte, and Sampath Ganesh of BSR Associates to file an appeal and said the impugned order would remain inoperative for the next four weeks from Thursday.

“We have heard the arguments of the senior counsel for the applicants and the arguments advanced by the joint director on behalf of the government. Since our order is appealable, the applicants are free to appeal.

“Therefore, we stay the operation of the impugned order and allow the applicants 10 days from Thursday to file an appeal,” the tribunal said in an order posted on its website and listed the matter for hearing on August 6.

On July 18, the NCLT had given the go-ahead to the corporate affairs ministry to prosecute Deloitte and BSR Associates for their failure to detect and report the scam that took place across the IL&FS group and 21 other entities, when they were the auditors of the scam-ridden and cripppled IL&FS Financial Services.

The NCLT order is based on the findings of the probe conducted by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office. The tribunal also gave permission to the government to implead Sen, Mehta and Ganesh.

While Deloitte had resigned as auditor of IL&FS group companies in 2017-18, BSR, which is an affiliate of KPMG, did so in June this year, well after the government sought to ban them for five years.

Meanwhile, after a protracted battle, the NCLT on Thursday finally cleared a Rs 4,350-crore bid by yoga- exponent Ram Dev-run Patanjali Ayurved to take over edible oil player Ruchi Soya, which owes over Rs 9,345 crore to the lenders and around Rs 2,800 crore to other creditors.