A creditor who has supplied goods to a corporate debtor and is owed money seeks to initiate the CIRP against it. As an OPERATIONAL creditor under Section 9 of the IBC, 2016, before filing the application the creditor must first:

Section 8 of the IBC obliges an operational creditor, before filing a Section 9 application, to deliver a DEMAND NOTICE of the unpaid operational debt to the corporate debtor, giving it ten days to respond. If the corporate debtor raises a PRE-EXISTING DISPUTE (a genuine dispute subsisting before the demand), the Adjudicating Authority shall NOT admit the Section 9 application. The demand-notice step and the pre-existing-dispute bar are calibrated to prevent vexatious insolvency filings against disputed operational debts. This is a hallmark of the operational-creditor route under the Code.