The petitioners, who are the respondents in this application, have filed the company petition by invoking various provisions of the Act, alleging certain acts of oppression and mismanagement against the applicants herein. The petitioners are opposing the increase of share capital and allotment of shares on the ground that they were holding 50% of the shares in the Company and their shareholding was diluted by allotment of shares and their present shareholding is 21.83%) which is under challenge. The petitioners apprehend that if the respondents are allowed to increase its capital and allot shares, their shareholding will further get diluted.
Since the proposed minutes containing the terms of consensus filed on 28/02/2012 does not contain any authorization by R-l in favour of Mr. C.S. Agarwal R-2 to sign such minutes on its behalf, the minutes dated 28/02/2012 and the order dated 23/03/2012 cannot be enforced against the R-l company. It is open to the parties to file a joint application for disposal of the petition (CP No. 77(ND)/2009) in terms of the MoS dated 26/04/2010. In the present scenario, as prayed in CA 236/2012, there is no justification for passing an order appointing Receiver/Administrator in the R-l company or to injunct the Respondents from operating the bank accounts of R-1. The direction contained in para 6(a) of the order dated 18/07/2012 for freezing all accounts of Rockman Breweries TNK Limited and stopping any transactions in such accounts till further orders therefore deserves to be and is accordingly recalled. It is open to the Petitioner to receive and encash the cheque for Rs. 9.5 lac deposited by R-l with the Bench Officer.
Non-transparent functioning of the R-I Company is evident from the correspondence produced by the petitioners who have been denied access to the statutory Records and the A/c books despite holding 52.94%, shares in the R-I Company. Huge amounts owed by Diastar Inc. USA to the R-I Company, admittedly a concern of R-2 & R-3, have been written off without any efforts for ascertaining actual dues, if any, and without any efforts for recovery and without following due procedure.
It is a fact that the company holds three board meetings consecutively on March 31, 2011, June 9, 2011 and September 29, 2011. It is also a fact that the petitioner has challenged the validity of the board meeting dated March 31, 2011. Even otherwise, the petitioner has requested the company to postpone the meeting dated March 31, 2011 to April 2, 2011, at 11.00 a.m.
The case of Chatterjee Petrochem (I) (P.) Ltd. v. Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd. [2011] 110 SCL 107 is clearly distinguishable as in that case when the company was in dire need of funds the Chatterjee Group had failed to keep its promise of providing funds as it obtained a loan raising the debt equity ratio of the company. These circumstances were taken into consideration for reduction of Chatterjee group into a minority. In the present case firstly the enforcement of MOU dated 18/05/2007 is not in consideration in the present order and secondly the facts borne out from the record clearly show that raising of authorised share capital was not on account of raising immediate funds for the completion of the hotel/resort project but was mainly for reducing the shareholding of the Petitioner to an abject minority.
The statute provides a right to the member or debenture-holder for inspection of the statutory registers and records as contemplated u/s 163 of the Act. The inspection is allowed to a member or debenture-holder without fee and any other person on payment of such sum as may be prescribed for each inspection. The member or debenture-holder is also entitled to the extracts from any Register, index or copy referred to in sub-section (1) of Section 163 of the Act without fee or additional fee as the case may be.
A list of professionals appointed by the company from 1957 onwards is extracted in the written submissions filed by the respondents to argue that the Board seat was not reserved for family members on representative basis. The list includes several non-family directors. Therefore, it is contented that though the company is promoted by three families and has representatives of three families as its shareholders, it has been professionally managed, and hence there was never any understanding or tacit consent stipulating proportional representation of the shareholders on the board. It is the specific case of the respondents that if such an understanding was there, one of the petitioners would have automatically become a director of the company.
It is noted that Shri Suresh Chandra V. Parekh and Smt. Nilaben S. Parekh jointly hold ten equity shares of Rs.100/- each under a common share certificate in HDFC Ltd. They requested for splitting of the said one share certificate into ten certificates of one share each. HDFC Ltd. acceded to their request and created 7 Folios for 7 shares with Folio Nos.5110 to 5116 but later on it was realized by HDFC Ltd. that the transferee in all 7 transfer deeds was the same person and necessary corrections were made for transfer of 7 shares into folio no.5110.
It is noted that the allotment of 75000 shares to R-2 (73500) and 1500 share to R-3 is an afterthought done through manipulation. The petitioner’s contentions in this regard have not been met. Form 2 filed in this regard on 1-6-2005 is hereby cancelled, restricting the shareholdings as per Form 2 filed with the ROC on 11-5-2005.
CP No 18/07 stands disposed off in the above terms. All CAs stand disposed off. All interim orders stand vacated. No order as to cost. The B.O New Delhi, Bench to send a copy of this order to R-10 & R-11 at their new address at 207-Gaur Green Avenue, Abhay Khand-II, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, U.P.
