2016 (11) TMI 1165

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....la Kothari v. Unitech Ltd. and pleadings and documents filed therein, being voluminous, would be considered common to all petitions. 2. Fixed deposits invited from the public have duly matured, but the Respondent Company has raised its hands and expressed its inability to repay the matured proceeds. The Respondent had initially approached the erstwhile Company Law Board with an application under section 74(2) of the Companies Act, 2013 for extension of time to repay the deposits which was rejected. 3. The investors, many of whom are either Senior Citizens or are facing acute financial crisis, have approached this forum for redressal of their grievances with the fond hope of retrieving their investments. They have alleged that the responde....

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....posits on or after 01.04.2014 (i.e. date on which Section 73 of the Companies Act, 2013 was notified), the deposits in question in the present applications cannot come under the preview of the "Deposits" as mentioned in Section 73(1) of the Companies Act, 2013. 6. It is further argued on behalf of the respondents that the term "depositors" has been defined under the Companies (Acceptance of Deposits) Rules, 2014 under Section (2)(1)(d), as per which "depositors" means,- (i) any member of the company who has made a deposit with the company in accordance with the provisions of the sub-section (2) of Section 73 of the Act, or (ii) any person who has made a deposit with the public company in accordance with the provision of section 76 of the....

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....ll depositors were being paid regularly till the company faced the downslide and while the going was good there were no grievances and the depositors willing offered money as deposits to get the benefit of a higher rate of interest. 9. The petitioners numbering more than 300 have repudiated the aforesaid submissions made on behalf of the respondents. A major bunch of the petitioners have been represented by Mr. Ashok Sachdeva, Advocate. Ld. Counsel seeks to demolish the respondent's application for dismissal of the petitions on grounds of maintainability and has submitted that the new act of 2013 does not supersede the old Act of 1956, but is in supersession and hence grants more tooth and power to the old Act. 10. After hearing the l....

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....e respondent's application for dismissal of the petitions on the grounds of maintainability. It is viewed as an exercise to procrastinate and derail the proceedings with a fond hope of succeeding. What I do agree with Mr. Sindhwani is that no case of cheating under section 420 IPC is made out, which is the sentiment of the agitated depositors, as the intention to cheat was non-existent at the time of acceptance of the deposits, a fact borne out from the regular interest previously enjoyed by the petitioners. 12. The respondent's application is therefore dismissed with costs of Rs. 25,000/-. Costs to be paid to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. 13. In view of the above, all petitions are allowed u/s 73(4). Each depositor would ....