Corporate Name Change and Decree-Like Certificates: execution may proceed in the ordinary court absent express exclusive jurisdiction.

A change of corporate name under company law does not alter the company's identity or extinguish existing rights and liabilities, so an executing court may permit amendment of the execution petition to reflect the new name. A decree-holder's renamed status therefore does not require substitution of a different legal person, and the execution proceeding may continue in the same entity's altered name. The banking-law certificate treated as a decree was also held executable in the ordinary executing court, because the statute's exclusive jurisdiction language was read as confined to winding-up related claims and questions, not to execution of the certificate itself. Execution before the executing court was therefore upheld.

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Issues: (i) Whether the executing court could permit amendment of the execution petition to reflect the decree-holder's changed corporate name. (ii) Whether the High Court had exclusive jurisdiction to execute the certificate treated as a decree under the banking law.

Issue (i): Whether the executing court could permit amendment of the execution petition to reflect the decree-holder's changed corporate name.

Analysis: A change of name under the Companies Act affects only the name and not the identity of the company. The statutory provisions governing change of name preserve existing rights and liabilities and expressly allow pending legal proceedings to continue by or against the company in its new name. In that setting, the executing court was not dealing with a substitution of a different legal person, but only with recording the altered name of the same decree-holder. Even apart from that, the court had power to allow the amendment in execution proceedings.

Conclusion: The amendment was permissible and the objection to it failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the High Court had exclusive jurisdiction to execute the certificate treated as a decree under the banking law.

Analysis: The provision granting exclusive jurisdiction was construed as applying to claims, applications and questions arising in winding up, but not as extending exclusive execution jurisdiction to a decree-like certificate issued after settlement of the list of debtors under the scheme provisions. The certificate was deemed to be a decree for execution purposes, and nothing in the statute required its execution to remain confined to the High Court. The executing court, therefore, had jurisdiction to proceed with execution.

Conclusion: Exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court was negatived and the executing court's jurisdiction was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The revisional application failed on both grounds, and the execution proceedings were allowed to continue before the executing court.

Ratio Decidendi: A change of name under company law does not create a new legal entity, and a decree-like certificate under the banking statute may be executed in the ordinary executing court unless the statute expressly confers exclusive execution jurisdiction on the High Court.

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