Aloysius D’Souza Vs Union of India (Bombay High Court)
Bombay High Court held that National Stock Exchange (NSE) doesn’t have any statutory authority to issue communication via which it blocked the issue of duplicate certificates. Accordingly, action of NSE quashed.
Facts- Since 1986 to 1997, Petitioner acquired shares, in tranches, of Respondent No.4-Company. The Petitioner subsequently sold some of these shares. In April 2007, the shares of Rs.10/- each of Respondent No.4-Company were split into shares of Rs.5/- each.
On 19 January 2007, Respondent No.5-Transfer Agent informed the Petitioner that he held 450 shares (before split-up) of Respondent No.4-Company, whereas he had surrendered only 50 shares for subdivision. Therefore, a request was made to the Petitioner to surrender the shares certificate for the balance shares. Respondent No.4-Company has issued dividend warrants from time to time in the name of Petitioner, wherein it is stated that the Petitioner is holding 1800 shares. However, these dividends were not credited to the Petitioner’s account because of communication from Respondent No.3-NSE which is impugned in the present proceedings. The said accumulated dividends on shares has been transferred to Respondent Nos.1 and 2 being Investor Protection Fund set up by the Union of India.
The Petitioner made an application for the issue of duplicate share certificates concerning shares held in Respondent No.4-Company. This application was made to Respondent No.5-Transfer Agent. However, Respondent Nos.4 and 5 have refused to issue the duplicate share certificates on account of the impugned communication issued by Respondent No.3 to Respondent Nos.4 and 5.
