TMI Blog2012 (12) TMI 1200X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Sawai Madhopur Lodge Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the companies‟) was dismissed. 2 Vehement submissions have been addressed by both the parties. 3 On behalf of the petitioner, it is pointed out that the succession certificate issued by a competent Court of jurisdiction on 19.02.2009 was a conclusive piece of evidence on the basis of which the petitioner group had sought a rectification in the share register of the company; after the death of Jagat Singh, Maharani Gayatri Devi had on 19.02.2009 withdrawn her probate petition; it had been agreed that the shareholding of Jagat Singh would be divided equally between the three legal heirs namely Maharani Gayatri Devi, Dev Raj and Lalitya Kumari; succession certificates to the said effect had been issued; there were joint succession certificates in favour of Dev Raj, Lalitya Kumari and Maharani Gayatri Devi. The succession certificates dated 08.05.2009 are documents which are a prima-facie proof of title of the petitioners to the shareholding of Jagat Singh. The company refusing to enter the names of the petitioner group inspite of notice had compelled to the petitioner to file a petition under Section 111 of the C ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... itioner group seeking a rectification of the share register was not accompanied with the requisite documents and this was replied by the company in its communication dated 22.07.2009; the petitioner group still chose not to file requisite documents which included the succession certificates. There is no fault on the part of the company. 5 Corroborative arguments have also been addressed on behalf of respondent No. 3/Prithvi Raj. Attention has been drawn to the order of the High Court dated 20.08.2008 passed in W.P.(C) No. 7524/2008; submission being that the order passed by the trial Court on 19.02.2009 inspite of having knowledge of the stay order passed by a higher Court operating against it is a nullity; it is non-est; such a defect cannot be cured. Reliance has been placed upon AIR 1954 S.C. 340 Kiran Singh and Others Vs. Chaman Paswan to support a submission that such a defect in no scenario can be cured; this fact was rightly noted by the CLB while returning a finding that in these circumstances, the rectification of the members register could not be permitted in favour of the petitioner. 6 Vehement submissions have also been addressed on behalf of respondent no.2 Urvas ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... .C. Sidhan (Dead) have been relied upon. Attention has been drawn to the stay order passed by the Bench of the High Court on 20.8.2008 in Writ Petition No.7524/2008; vehement argument being that when a stay order is operating and the High Court having categorically directed the proceedings in the Succession Case No.134/1988 to be stayed; the settlement recorded by the Civil Judge on 19.02.2009 between Gayatri Devi, Dev Raj and Lalitya Kumari in the aforenoted succession case is an order which is void and a nullity; it has no value in the eyes of law; it necessarily has to be ignored. Submission being that this argument of the respondent had also been noted by the Writ Court while disposing of the writ petition on 18.01.2011; this issue had been kept alive granting permission to the appellant to take appropriate legal recourse which was further endorsed by the Division Bench of the High Court on 17.02.2011. Reliance has been placed upon AIR 1967 SC 1386 Mulraj Vs. Murti Raghonathji Majaraj to support this submission. Reliance has also been placed upon (2010) 11 SCC 557 Manohar Lal (D) by Lrs. Vs. Ugrasen (D) by Lrs. And Others to support the same submission. Reliance has also been p ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rtificate will now have to be obtained. Argument being that in this background the CLB not entertaining the application of Dev Raj and Lalitya Kumari under Section 111 of the Companies Act in no manner suffers from any infirmity. 7 In rejoinder, the learned senior counsel for the petitioner has relied upon (1991) 4 SCC 1 State of Punjab and Others Vs. Gurdev Singh to support his submission that an order of a Court even presuming it is not made in good faith is capable of all legal consequences; it is valid unless it is set aside or quashed; this proposition has been cited to answer the argument of the respondent that although the said order dated 20.08.2009 staying the proceedings in the succession Court had been passed by a higher Court yet this order had admittedly been passed at the behest and at the asking of Maharani Gayatri Devi; she was the sole beneficiary of this order; it was not adversarial to any other person; in these circumstances, the trial Judge having recording the common order of settlement in the succession case and the probate case giving effect to the compromise/arrangement arrived at between Maharani Gayatri Devi and her two grand children Dev Raj and Lalit ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... you solely. My signatures is witnessed by the two signatories below. 12 This was in the form of a letter addressed by Jagat Singh to his mother Gayatri Devi where the concern of the testator was that his estranged wife Priya should not be able to grab his property through his children; in these circumstances, he had expressed his intention to disinherit his children Devraj and Lalitya Kumari from getting any claim over his estate which was accordingly bequeathed solely to his mother Gayatri Devi. 13 Succession case i.e. LA No. 134/1998 was filed by Gayatri Devi seeking letter of administration qua the estate of her deceased son Jagat Singh. In 327/2006 i.e. almost 10 years after the date of demise of her son a probate petition was filed by her before the Court of the Additional District Judge. Thereafter W.P.(C) No. 7524/2008 was filed by Maharani Gayatri Devi in the High Court seeking a consolidation of the aforenoted succession case i.e LA No. 134/1998 with the probate petition No. 327/2006. Her two grandchildren Devraj and Lalitya Kumari were arrayed as respondents. On 20.08.2008 which was the first date of hearing, the following order was passed by the High Court:- ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Rajmata Gayatri Devi and 2nd party are Maharaj Devraj and Rajkumari Lalitya. It has been settled between the parties that they are ready to divide amongst themselves the estate of late Maharaj Jagat Singh equally in 1/3rd share each and Rajmata Gayatri does not claim any relief/claim/probate of the disputed Will dated 23.06.1996. In view of the settlement between the parties, the petition NO. 327/2006 regarding letter of administration is hereby dismissed consigned to record room. 19.02.2009 On behalf of petitioner Rajmata Gayatri Devi Sh. G.K. Garg on behalf of respondents No. 2 3 Sh. D.K.Malhotra, Advocate present. For Sh Bhawani Singh, Sh. Ramesh Sharma Advocate is present.. On behalf of the petitioner Rajmata Gayatri Devi Sh. Vijay Singh Sharma, Advocate file vakalatnama. On behalf of petitioner Devraj one application of compromise and copy of settlement was filed on 07.02.2009 and the original settlement has been filed today. On behalf of petitioner Rajmata Gayatri Devi today a reply t the same has been filed, in which she has submitted for acceptance of the prayer of Sh. Devraj and has admitted the compromise settlement dated 14.112008 arrived between the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nsfer deeds were executed by her; communication to this effect had been sent by Gayatri Devi to the Board of Directors of the companies. The intention of Gayatri Devi to settle all disputes with her grand children Devraj and Lalitya Kumari is further substantiated by her Will dated 10.05.2009 wherein she had bequeathed all her properties moveable and immoveable in favour of her two grand children Devraj and Lalitya Kumari. This Will is the subject matter of challenge by the respondent group (Jai Singh, Prithvi Raj and Urvashi Devi). Their locus standi to challenge this Will is questionable. Relevant would it be to state that in the application seeking impleadment (in W.P.(C) No. 7524/2008), the claim of the aforenoted respondents was only their prayer to be declared as the legal representatives of Gayatri Devi; it was never their case that they were the legal heirs of Gayatri Devi; their locus standi to challenge this proceeding would thus be excluded. That apart under Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, a female hindu inherits a full blown estate; it is not a life estate; Gayatri Devi had inherited the estate of Jagat Singh in terms of his Will dated 23.06.1996; she was ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... filed this plaint in their defence). Para 12 avers that Jagat Singh inspite of his adoption continued to have cordial relations with his birth giving mother Gayatri Devi whom he always address as mammi‟; Jagat Singh accordingly willed his properties both moveable and immoveable in favour of Gayatri Devi. Thereafter in the entire body of the plaint, there is no mention of the alleged adoption. In this case for the first time Jai Singh has set up a defence that Jagat Singh was adopted by Maharaj Bahadur Ji on. 02.12.1957 and as such his children (Dev Raj and Lalitya Kumari) are not entitled to inherit his estate as they are no longer in the line of dependency from Gayatri Devi. Relevant would it be to state that this was a defence set up by Jai Singh alone for the first time in the written statement filed by him in 2011; it was never the case of any person before this period that Jagat Singh had been adopted. This defence, whatever may be its probative value in the suit would have no bearing in this appeal. The interim application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure seeking a staying of the implementation of the order dated 19.02.2009.was pressed. This ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... since an ex-parte order had been passed on 20.08.2008 prohibiting the court below to proceed further in Succession Case No. 134/1998 and as such the order passed on 19.02.2009 in the said proceedings is a nullity and void is a mis-judged submission. It was at the behest of the writ petitioner (Gayatri Devi herself) that the ex-parte order had been obtained by her in her own favour on 20.08.2008; she was the sole beneficiary of the said order. This ex-parte order was even otherwise not adversarial to any other person except the respondents i.e. Devraj and Lalitya Kumari. It was not as if any other person was affected by this order. The parties to the proceedings in W.P.(C) NO. 7524/2008 were Dev Raj and Lalitya Kumar alone; as also in the proceedings before the succession Court and the probate court where the settlement on 19.02.2009 was recorded. The respondents were not in any manner connected with any of these aforenoted proceedings. 23 In this factual scenario, the submission of the learned counsel for the respondents that the settlement dated 19.02.2009 is non-est and a nullity on this count is too far-fetched. At best it can be an irregularity which will not take away the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on the ground that on a true valuation, the Court was not competent to entertain the appeal. Question of prejudice was gone into; no prejudice having been caused to the appellant, the appeal had been dismissed. Findings returned are inapplicable in the present scenario. 24 The facts are distinct in the present case. As noted supra, the petitioner and the anticipated parties in the writ court had settled the matter in the Court below; there was no involvement of any other person except the persons who had arrived at a settlement on 19.02.2009; all parties were, ad-idem; no party was aggrieved; the respondent group had in fact no locus-standi to challenge the settlement. It did not prejudice any other person. In this scenario, nothing prohibited Gayatri Devi from entering into a settlement with the aforenoted respondents and getting their statements recorded before the Court on 19.02.2009. This ex-parte order did not create a hurdle to the extent that it would become a nonconsequential order. 25 Further vehement submission of the respondents in this context being that the compromise/settlement arrived at inter-se between the parties in the pending probate proceedings on 19.0 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... assistance of any party the court is called upon to continue the determination by itself it would be an arduous job and on many occasions the conclusion is likely to be contrary to what may have appeared to be the truth if the case had been properly contested. 26 There is no dispute to the proposition that such a petition cannot be compromised; it cannot be disposed of by a compromise. There is also no dispute to the proposition that a judgment pronounced in a probate proceeding is a judgment in rem; it is binding on the world at large. However, the next principle is also clear; the plaintiff is the dominus litus in a litigation and the matter has to be left to his charge; he has to decide the fate of his case. 27 In this case, Gayatri Devi had filed the probate petition seeking probate of the Will dated 23.06.1996 of her son Jagat Singh. However, she chose not to press this petition and this is what has been recorded in the order dated 19.02.2009; either such a case would be permitted to go down in default or in terms of the statement made by the petitioner that she is not pressing her petition; she has an option to get a closure of her case which had happened vide order da ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... vious decision to a contrary effect. 32 In another judgment of the Court of the Orissa High Court in AIR 2002 ORISSA 114 Kinkar Santananda Sanyasi Vs. State Bank of India and others, a dispute was raised about the inte-state succession of the deceased testator and the petitioner who was asked to furnish a succession certificate but he could not produce the same. The opposite party produced the said certificate; the Court had noted that the Bank had been left with no other option but to release the amount in favour of the said third party. This was a case where the Charubala Das the testator had allegedly executed a Will in favour of the petitioner; although Charubala had died in 1993 but even up to 2002 no steps had been taken by the petitioner to get the Will probated and nor any attempt had been made to obtain succession certificate. The succession certificate produced by respondent No. 3 had led to the release of the money in his favour. 33 The judgment of Sukumar Deb Roy and Anr (supra) relied upon by the respondent is wholly inapplicable. This was a case where one Mrinalini had died leaving behind two married daughters and four unmarried daughters. Kamala applied for a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sel for the respondent on the judgment of Amonia Supplies Corporation is misplaced. The Apex Court has held that in matters of rectification, it is the company Court alone which will have jurisdiction; all the issues peripheral to rectification would come within the domain of the company court; it would be the court of exclusive jurisdiction in so far as the rectification is concerned. It is only where fraud or forgery in holding the shares or fraud or forgery qua the title to the said shares is alleged and prima facie established only then the said issue will go beyond the jurisdiction of the Company Judge and would have to be decided by a civil forum. It is the nature of the allegations made in each case which will answer the question as to whether the rectification is permissible by the Company Law Board under Section 111 of the Companies Act or not. 38 Having considered carefully, the facts of the present case and the nature of the allegations made by the respondents, it is clear that the alleged disputes raised by the respondent group in so far as the rectification issue is concerned are all illusory. Admittedly these shares were in the name of Jagat Singh who had bequeat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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