1952 (11) TMI 8

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.... for brevity's sake, as the company. They have made various allegations of mismanagement and foul play against the company, its directors and managing agents. But it is unnecessary to go into those allegations at this stage because a preliminary objection has been taken by the learned counsel for the opposite-parties and the petition fails, in my opinion, on that preliminary ground alone. It is contended on behalf of the opposite parties that the requirements of sub-section (3) of section 153C have not been complied with. The relevant portion of this sub-section reads as follows: "(3) No application under sub-section (1) shall be made by any member, unless: (a)In the case of a company having a share capital, the member complaining-....

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....e petitioners in this court. But no such endorsement is to be found in the case of the 117 shareholders whose signatures were filed along with the petition. They do not write anything at the top of the sheet on which their signatures are to be found. Looking at the sheets themselves, one cannot ascertain why the signatures were affixed. The petitioners felt that there was this lacuna and to fill it up they filed an affidavit of one Jagannath who is himself a shareholder and who describes himself as the Mukhtar-i-Khas of Gobardhan Das Poddar, one of the petitioners. He has sworn in this affidavit that he, in company with one Lala Banwari Lal and "other persons" (whose names have not been disclosed), went round to various shareholders and obt....

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....In this connection, reference may also be made to section 91 of the Evidence Act. The relevant portion of that section may be quoted as follows: "in all cases in which any matter is requited by law to be reduced to the form of a document, no evidence shall be given in proof.........of such matter, except the document itself, or secondary evidence of its contents in cases in which secondary evidence is admissible under the provisions hereinbefore contained." In the present case, the law requires that the consent should be in writing, i.e., in the form of a document. Therefore, the document itself should prove that the consent has been given. No evidence, either by way of affidavit or of oral sworn statement in court, can be given to pr....