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2012 (12) TMI 680 - HC - Companies LawTerritorial jurisdiction of court - Whether the plaintiffs who themselves have invoked the jurisdiction of Israel court can re-agitate or re- ventilate their grievance before the Indian Courts, that too in the circumstances when they failed to succeed in securing a favourable order from the highest court of another sovereign state - Held that:- The plaintiffs cannot be allowed to continue two parallel remedies whether before two courts of the same country or the two courts of different counties and grant of any favourable relief to the plaintiffs will amount to overreaching the order passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of Israel which has already declined to grant interim relief as has been claimed by the plaintiffs in the present suit. Any indulgence by this court will result in causing serious interference with the process of justice of the foreign court. In fact passing of any order by this court can be in serious conflict with the orders passed by the Israel courts and such a situation would be in clear transgression of the principle of comity of courts and will result in creating anomalies and irreconcilable situation because of the continuation of two parallel proceedings before two competent courts of jurisdiction of two sovereign states. The case of the plaintiffs is a case of shifting stands as they have taken conflicting stands taken before this court and before the Israel court and thus the plea of the plaintiffs to lift the corporate veil of the defendant companies to unmask the core company which created the web of subsidiary companies for the purposes of tax evasion and also for the purpose of playing with the legitimate rights of their creditors including the plaintiffs, with whom they had entered into the First Consultancy Agreement dated 1.8.2005 and Share Entitlement Agreement dated 17.10.2006, cannot be appreciated as the only judicial forum which was available to the plaintiffs to raise such a plea was the Israel court where for the reasons best known to them they not only failed to implead defendants Nos. 3 to 5 but also failed to raise any such plea in that regard. Suppression of Facts - Held that:- The only disclosure made by the plaintiffs with regard to the order passed by Hon’ble Supreme Court of Israel is that plea of defendants was also accepted by the appellate court in Israel and it was observed by the said court that such an order cannot be passed by the Israel courts, more so when the foreign companies were not parties to the present suit. Counsel for the defendants however took a stand that these very plaintiffs themselves filed a copy of the said judgment before the District Court Israel on 26.10.2011 along with the application for return of the bank guarantee deposited and therefore they cannot take a plea that copy of the judgment of the Supreme Court was not available to them or they could not get the same translated into English language for such a long period of over two months. The question thus arises is that whether such half - hearted disclosure by the plaintiffs can be considered as fair and honest disclosure or whether it will amount to suppression of material facts. It is a settled legal position that the litigant who approaches the court is bound to disclose all material facts and produce all the documents which are relevant to the litigation and if he withholds a vital document in order to gain advantage then he would be guilty of playing fraud on the court as well as on the opposite party. Forum Shopping - The practise of choosing a particular forum by the plaintiffs for redressal of his grievances i.e choosing a place to sue which is convenient to him or a court which has an umbilical connection with the cause of action, etc is undeniably an unfettered right. This graphically described practice of forum hunting or forum shopping indubitably leads not only to the multiplicity of proceedings but also of the abuse of the process of the court. The courts have to discourage such practice with a heavy hand. The present suit filed by the plaintiffs is not only a classic case of forum shopping but also a case clearly impinging upon the well-established principle of comity of courts. The plaintiffs are also guilty of suppressing material facts from this court as discussed above. In the ultimate analysis, this court is not inclined to threadbare discuss the various other issues raised and also the judgments cited in support thereof by both the parties and hereby dismiss the present suit in the exercise of inherent powers vested in the court under Section 151, CPC so as to prevent the abuse of the process of the court and to secure the ends of justice.
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