Limitation in winding-up recovery: court-supervised proceedings and statutory exclusion periods keep section 446 applications timely.

Limitation for an official liquidator's recovery application under section 446 turned on when the right to apply accrued, not on whether a parallel suit might later be time-barred. A voluntary winding up did not by itself attract all powers of a court-directed winding up; section 518 gave only limited recourse in specified cases. Once the winding up came under court supervision, sections 523 and 526 treated it as a winding up by the court, bringing section 446 into play. Section 458A also required exclusion of the relevant period for limitation purposes, so the objection of limitation failed and the application remained maintainable.

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Issues: Whether the official liquidator's application for recovery of the company's dues under the winding-up jurisdiction was barred by limitation, including whether the right to apply arose during voluntary winding up or only when the winding up came under the supervision of the court, and whether the exclusion of time under the Companies Act applied.

Analysis: The application could not be defeated merely because a regular suit for the same claim would have been time-barred if filed later. The decisive question was when the right to apply under section 446 accrued. A voluntary winding up does not automatically attract all the powers available in a winding up by the court; section 518 gives only limited recourse to the court in specified circumstances and does not convert a voluntary winding up into a compulsory one for all purposes. However, once the winding up was brought under the supervision of the court, the statutory fiction in sections 523 and 526 treated the proceeding as a winding up by the court, thereby making section 446 available. In computing limitation, section 458A also required exclusion of the relevant period between commencement of winding up and the deemed winding-up order.

Conclusion: The limitation objection was rejected. The application under section 446 was held to be within time and maintainable for hearing on merits.

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