TMI Blog1955 (10) TMI 19X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ngs were stayed pending the appeal. The appeal was, however, dismissed on 24th October, 1950. The official liquidator filed a petition under section 235 of the Companies Act, against seven persons including the appellant who was one of the directors of the bank. 2. The official liquidator's case was that the directors, manager and auditors of the bank were guilty of various acts of misfeasance which caused to the company a loss of over four and a half lacs of rupees. He prayed that a decree for this amount be passed against the opposite parties including the appellant severally or jointly. 3. The appellant and the other opposite parties denied the allegations made against them and further pleaded that the application was barred by l ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... International Dictionary). The word "manner" therefore refers to the procedure to be followed in the matter of institution and hearing of the appeal. 8. "Condition" means ''essential quality; property, attribute, that which must exist as the occasion or concomitant of something else; that which is requisite in order that something else should take effect; an essential qualification; stipulation ; terms specified; a clause in a con tract, or agreement, which has for its object to suspend, to defeat, or in some way to modify, the principal obligation." (See Webster's Inter national Dictionary). The word "condition" has reference to the nature, quality, qualifications of the order or decision itself against which an appeal is proposed to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... amount either to a decree from which appeals lie under section 96, Civil Procedure Code, or to such an order as falls within the ambit of section 104 read with Order XLIII, rule 1, of the aforesaid Code. 12. I am supported in this view by the observations made in a decision of this court, Santi Lal v. Indian Exchange Bank, Lahore [1916] ILR 38 All 537 , and in two decisions of the Calcutta High Court, Levy Bros. Knowles Ltd. v. Subodh Kumar Dey AIR 1927 Cal. 689 and Madan Gopal v. Sachindra Nath [1928] ILR 55 Cal. 262 . 12A. In Santi Lal's case ( supra ), it was held that the right of appeal from an order of the District Judge under section 169 of the Companies Act of 1882 (corresponding to section 202 of the pres ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... . Sansar Chand's case ( supra ) related to an appeal against an order of a District Judge and it was held that the right of appeal under section 202 is not co-extensive with the right to appeal under the Code of Civil Procedure and that the language of section 202 is wide enough to cover appeals against all orders made in the matter of the winding up of a company provided that such an order finally decides a dispute between the parties and deprives the appellant of a substantial and important right and is not a mere formal or interlocutory order. 16. In Lala Mulk Raj Bhalla's case ( supra ) [1938] 8 Comp. Cas. 248 it was held that the expression "appeals will be had in the same manner and subject to the same conditions in, and s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sed by a Subordinate Court in the exercise of its original jurisdiction." To my mind, the learned Judges fell into error in thinking that all the decisions passed by the Company Judge in the course of winding up are merely "orders" within the meaning of the Civil Procedure Code and are not decrees. Many such decisions would fall under the heading of decrees and appeals would lie therefrom. A decree is denned as "the formal expression of an adjudication which, so far as regards the Court expressing it, conclusively determines the rights of the parties with regard to all or any of the matters in controversy in the suit." 19. A proceeding under section 235 of the Companies Act, for in* stance, is in the nature of a suit and the order pas ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the winding up proceedings also, otherwise not. 21. The question, therefore, is whether the order in question in the present case is a. "judgment". The word "judgment" in rule 5, Chapter 8, of the Rules of the Court has been taken from the Letters Patent of the Allahabad High Court issued by Her Majesty in Council in the year 1866. The rule is practically the same as paragraph 10 of the Letters Patent. Consequently, the word " judgment" has to be interpreted not in the light in which it is denned in the Civil Procedure Code but as having the meaning assigned to it in English law. The Federal Court had occasion to define the word "judgment" in Kuppuswami Rao v. The King AIR 1949 FC 1 , where it held that the word "judgment" means t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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