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2013 (10) TMI 799

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....pondent Company') is required to be implemented. Though the question raised in these appeals is short and precise, as noticed above, learned counsels for the parties have raised various issues and contentions which, in no way, appear to be even remotely connected with the question of law that arises from the order of the High Court. We would, therefore, like to make it clear at the outset that in spite of the strenuous efforts on the part of the learned counsels for the parties to persuade us to go into the said questions we have considered it wholly unnecessary to do so for reasons indicated hereinafter. Instead, we must deal with what strictly arises for our answer in the present appeals leaving the parties to avail of such remedies as may be open to them in law in respect of all other grievances raised. 3. We may now take note of a few relevant facts. The Respondent Company was wound up by an order dated 28.10.1987 of the learned Company Judge of the Calcutta High Court. The appeal filed against the winding up order by some of the workers of the Company came to be dismissed by the Appellate Bench of the High Court on 18.11.1987. Thereafter, on an approach being made, the windin....

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...., is that a Reference made in the year 2004 to the BIFR by two of the Directors of the Respondent Company claiming to be in office at that point of time was ordered by the Calcutta High Court to be disposed of on merits. The said order is dated 20.02.2006 passed in W.P. No. 221 of 2006. On the basis of the said order proceedings before the BIFR were taken up and a scheme under Sections 18(4) and 19(3) of the SICA was framed and notified for immediate implementation by the order of the BIFR dated 4.11.2009. The said order came to be challenged before the High Court in W.P. No. 1166/2009 (re-numbered as W.P. 5535(W)/2010). There was an interim order in the said writ petition restraining the respondents therein from taking any steps in the matter of sale of any property of the Respondent Company or from creating any charge in respect of the assets of the Company without the leave of the Court. The writ petition was, however, withdrawn on 16.6.2010 whereafter three separate writ petitions bearing Nos. 12377/2010, 12406/2010 and 12412/2010 were filed challenging the jurisdiction of the BIFR to entertain the reference; frame the scheme in question and pass orders for implementation of th....

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....17-39022/2012, two Directors, namely, Chaitan Choudhury and Ridh Karan Rakhecha who have purportedly filed the appeal on behalf of the Respondent Company, apart from raising the issue of jurisdiction of the BIFR and the applicability of the SICA to the Company, had also struck issues with regard to the changes in the composition of the Management Committee and the frauds and the misdeeds allegedly committed by the first respondent, i.e., Namokar Vinimay Pvt. Ltd. in bringing out the above changes. Peculiarly, the reference of the case of the respondent Company to the BIFR was made by the very same appellants. In the last set of appeals in chronological order, i.e., appeals arising out of SLP(C) Nos. 39023-39028/2012, the appellant Radheshyam Ajitsaria is one of the promoters of the revival scheme under which a Committee of Management had been constituted in the year 1988/1989 by the learned Company Judge of the High Court to run the affairs of the Company. The appellants therein are aggrieved by the BIFR's scheme which, according to the appellant, would be in serious derogation of the scheme approved by the High Court. 6. Having noted the broad features of the grievances raised in....

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....tion has been admitted by the appellant in the appeals arising out of SLP (C) Nos.39005-39010/2012 in paragraph 'I' of the SLP by stating as follows : "It is submitted that in all an amount of Rs.170 crores has been paid by NHAI to the Respondent No.22 Company out of which Rs.95 crores has been deposited with the Registrar of the High Court on 9.11.2012 to the credit of the Respondent No.22 Company pursuant to the award dated 13.9.2012 and as such the Respondent No.22 Company would be out of BIFR as it will have a surplus fund available and profits of about Rs.50 crores even after meeting out all losses and liabilities." 7. To appreciate the effect of the aforesaid facts on the necessity of any adjudication of the present appeals, the object behind enactment of the SICA and the statutory scheme contemplated by the Act may be briefly noticed. An elaborate exposition of the legislative history and object behind enactment of the SICA as well as the scheme under provisions of the Act is to be found in a recent pronouncement of this Court in Raheja Univeral Limited v. NRC Limited & Ors. (2012) 4 SCC 148 At the cost of repetition it may be usefully recapitulated that the Act was enacte....

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....es and liabilities is a common ground amongst all the contesting parties. The rehabilitation scheme framed by the Board by its order dated 04.10.1999 is yet to be implemented. In the aforesaid situation keeping in view the object and scheme of the Act and the virtual consensus of the contesting parties with regard to the present financial health of the respondent company it is clear that the company can no longer fall within the ambit of the expression "sick industrial company" as defined in Section 3(o) of the Act. Further applicability of SICA to the respondent company, therefore, does not arise. 9. If the respondent company no longer falls within the ambit of a 'sick industrial company' as defined by Section 3(o) of the Act and the Act has ceased to apply to the company and the rehabilitation package worked out by the Board has not yet been implemented, the question(s) arising in the present appeals have surely become academic and redundant. If that be so, we do not see why we should answer the said question(s) in the present group of appeals. Instead, in fitness of things, we should leave the said question (s) open for determination in an appropriate case and as and when the o....