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2016 (10) TMI 1107

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..... e the expiry of the period of three years which commenced from 30.9.2012 and expired on 29.9.2015 or thereafter. Moreover, acknowledgment has to be made to those who have some interest in Respondent No. 1 company. The petitioners have never been director or shareholder in Respondent No. 1 company. The question of acknowledgment does not even arise. There is a serious doubt whether the petitioners have any locus standi to file such a petition. Therefore, we are satisfied that this petition is liable to be dismissed without grant of any benefit of Section 18 of the Limitation Act and for lack of locus standi on the part of the petitioners. - C.P. No. 108/ND/2016 - - - Dated:- 6-10-2016 - M.M. Kumar C.J. (President), and Ina Malhotra,(Member) JJ. For Appellant: Uttam Datt, Manu Beri and Tarun Sharma, Advocates ORDER M.M. Kumar, C.J. (President) 1. It is a well settled principle of law that law comes to the rescue of those who are vigilant about their rights. For measuring the extent of vigilance, the legislature has provided period of limitation under the Limitation Act, 1963 (for brevity, 'Limitation Act.'). The Limitation Act incorporated by reference a .....

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..... tion of Application Period of Limitation Time from which period begins to run 113, Any suit for which no period of limitation is provided elsewhere in this Shedule. Three years When the right to sue accrues 4. A perusal of the aforesaid provision would show that in cases where no period of limitation is provided elsewhere in the Schedule, there Article 113 is to apply. In such cases, the period of limitation provided is three years from the date when the right to sue accrues. 5. It is equally well settled that when the adjudication results in passing of a decree by a Court or Tribunal, then it is preceded by filing of suits. Every suit is commenced by filing of a plaint. Honourable the Supreme Court, in the case of Manish Mohan Sharma v. Ram Bahadur Thakur Ltd. AIR 2006 SC 1690 held that Section 634A of the Companies Act, 1956, read with Sections 397 398 indicate that all orders passed by the Company Law Board in an application u/s. 397 398 are enforceable like decrees without any limit on the nature of the order passed by the Company Law Board. In that case, it was fur .....

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..... e Tribunal may be enforced by that Tribunal in the same manner as if it were a decree made by a court in a suit pending therein, and it shall be lawful for the Tribunal or the Appellate Tribunal to send for execution of its orders to the court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction,-- (a) in the case of an order against a company, the registered office of the company is situated; or (b) in the case of an order against another person, the person concerned voluntarily resides or carried on business or personally works for gain. (4) All proceedings before the Tribunal or the Appellate Tribunal shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of sections 193 and 228 and for the purposes of section 196 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860), and the Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal shall be deemed to be civil court for the purposes of section 195 and Chapter XXVI of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 1973 (2 of 1974). 7. A perusal of the aforesaid provisions would reveal beyond any doubt that the Tribunal is not bound by the procedure laid down by the Code of Civil Procedure. For the purposes of discharging their functions under 2013 Act or under the Inso .....

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..... period for a suit or application, all acknowledgments of liability in respect of such rights must be made in writing duly signed by the party against whom such right is claimed or by his representative. The aforesaid position is evident from the reading of Sec. 18(1) itself and it has been explained in details by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Sampuran Singh v. Niranjan Kaur AIR 1999 SC 1047. 11. We have prefaced this order with various principles of law, equity and justice for the reason that the facts presented before us in the present petition are required to be examined in the light of the aforesaid principles. 12. It would be first profitable to closely examine the reliefs claimed by the petitioner which are evident from the perusal of para 8 of the petition filed in July 2016. The petitioner has claimed that Respondent Nos. 2 to 5 be removed as directors and directions be issued to bonafide shareholders of the company for re-constitution of the Board of Directors by excluding Respondent Nos. 2 to 5. A consequential relief of restraining Respondent Nos. 2 to 5 either by themselves or by their agents, from interfering in the management and affairs of Respon .....

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..... of its incorporation (see para 6, Facts of the Case, sub-para xxxv). Respondent No. 1 was granted paging licenses by Ministry of Telecommunications, Government of India and Respondent No. 1 had an arbitrational claim dispute in different arbitral proceedings where a total claim of ₹ 200/- Crores has been made. It has also been alleged that Respondent Nos. 2 to 5 had kept the petitioner in dark about the arbitral proceedings and failed to disclose the status of those proceedings till the talks for compromise were started. It is thus alleged that Respondent No. 1 was incorporated fraudulently which has the same name as was considered by the Joint Venture Agreement dated 29.12.1995 (P-9). 15. The petitioners have also alleged that Respondent No. 1 company has failed to file audited balance sheet since the year 2003 till date and no AGM has been ever convened after 2012. Even prior to 2012, as per record available with the Registrar, no AGM was conducted for the year 2002 till 2010. Disclosing the particulars of Respondent No. 1 company, it has been stated in para 1(b) that the registered office of the company is at A-18, Shivalik, New Delhi-110017. It has further been stated .....

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..... the Limitation Act as noticed above. We suggested to the learned counsel that the petition is liable to be dismissed on that count. 20. Mr. Uttam Datt, learned counsel for the petitioner, however, made an endeavour to point out that there are numerous e-mails which have been placed on record (P-8) from 21.8.2013 to 02.10.2015 which reveal acknowledgement on the part of Respondent Nos. 2 3 conceding the claim of the petitioners to remove Respondent Nos. 2 to 5 as directors and have reconstitution of the Board without them. Learned counsel also claims that acknowledgement has also been made with regard to illegal allotment of shares to shareholders between 2000 and 2012 and, therefore, the instant petition is not hit by the period of limitation. He has taken us through various e-mails which did not even touch upon the aforesaid issues as per the claim made by the learned counsel. A perusal of e-mail dated 3.6.2014, 20.7.2014 and 24.7.2014 at page 174 did not reveal any acknowledgment of the relief claimed by the petitioners. It only refers to the working out of account on the shareholding as per the request made by one Subodh. The other email also did not reflect on any acknowl .....

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