TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2017 (4) TMI 130
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....thority of India ('NHAI' for short) on account of acquisition of the company's land, should have been deposited with the High Court, in the true spirit of the order dated 23.02.2011. To the extent relevant, for the purpose of the present case, it may be noted that of the total amount due to the company, the NHAI issued a cheque for an amount of Rs. 94.16 crores approximately in favour of the Registrar of the High Court after deducting an amount of Rs. 10,55,60,331/- by way of tax deducted at source ('TDS' for short). Thereafter, the company filed its income-tax return for the assessment year 2013-2014 and claimed and received refund of the entire amount covered by the TDS, after deducting the tax. According to the respondents, the amount was utilised for various purposes in connection with the affairs of the company. It is the stand of the respondents that the direction to deposit the amount with the High Court was given to the NHAI, and in having claimed, received and utilised the refund received from the Income-Tax Department, there is no violation of the order dated 23.02.2011. 3. Learned Single Judge was prima facie of the opinion that there was deliberate violation of the ord....
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....senior Advocate appearing for the Baranagore Jute Factory PLC Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the applicant in CA 906 of 2010 submitted that a portion of the vacant land of the company in liquidation has been acquired by the National Highway Authority of India and on account of compensation huge amounts are likely to be paid to the company in liquidation. He submitted that considering the conflicting claims made by various persons who are either in management or who are seeking to take over management in liquidation the money likely to come may not be safe. Therefore, he submitted that the money should be adequately protected. Mr. Sen, learned Senior Advocate appearing for Chaitan Chowdhury and Ridh Karan Rakeeha submitted that the submission made by Mr. S.N. Mitra is a reasonable one. Mr. Anindya Kumar Mitra, learned Senior Advocate appearing for Damodar Prasad Bhattar, Sunil Toshniwal, S.Jha & Ors, submitted that there is no objection to the money being protected but he submitted that his clients are presently running the management of the company in liquidation and therefore his clients should be permitted to receive the compensation and to keep the same in fixed deposit subject to fur....
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.... 12.03.2015 passed by this Court in Civil Appeal Nos. 2814-2815 of 2015, read as follows: "4. The Division bench while affirming the order passed by the Company Judge observed as under:- " Considering the amount of deposit which the appellants want to withdraw, and the company's indebtness to its various creditors and the quantum of its liability, coupled with the facts that even the workers have not been paid their dues, we do not feel it safe to allow a particular group of shareholders, who are described as interloper by the creditors, to withdraw the money deposited with the Registrar, Original Side of this Court without deciding the said issue finally particularly when we find that the appellant/applicant themselves have filed an application being C.A. No.957 of 2010 praying for permanent stay of the company petition No.2 of 1987 which is yet to be decided finally. In the aforesaid context, we do not find any illegality in the impugned order passed by the learned Company Court proposing to dispose of all the pending applications simultaneously." xxxx xxxx &nbs....
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....cted at source. Such payment appears to have been received by the Registrar, Original Side of this Court on or about November, 2012. The fixed deposit was made by the Registrar, Original Side on 9th November, 2012, that is to say, during the financial year 2012-13 corresponding to assessment year 2013-14. In the return filed on behalf of the company for the assessment year 2013-14, a claim for refund was made on the basis of the aforesaid deposit made by the National Highway Authority on account of the tax deducted at source as would appear from page 101 of the application. It appears that the claim for refund was met by the Income Tax Authority by issuing a cheque on 13th June, 2014 as would appear from page 102 of the application. There is, as such, clear evidence of the fact that the alleged contemnors received the refund in violation of the order dated 23rd February, 2011. Assuming that receipt of the cheque on account of refund of income tax was in the usual course of business, there can be no gainsaying that the cheque should not have been encashed without leave of Court. From Annexure-E to the application appearing at page 102, it appears that a cheque dated 13th June, 2014 ....
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....n made on behalf of the respondents as well. A Company with such turnover cannot possibly carry on its business without operating any bank accounts at all. The livelihood of 4000 workers employed by the company is involved. We are not concerned with whether the present management will continue or not; we are also not concerned with whether the management is managing the affairs of the company well or mismanaging the company. These are matters which will be decided in the appropriate proceedings at the appropriate stage. It is however reiterated, at the cost of repetition that there was no specific order against the Company restraining the Company from encashing cheques towards Income Tax refund, or from utilising the same. The order under appeal cannot, in our view, be sustained to the extent that the appellants have been restrained from operating their bank accounts without setting apart ten crores and odd. The two appeals and the connected stay applications are disposed of." (Emphasis supplied) 16. As we have already clarified, the Division Bench, in the impugned order, has not interfered with the Rule issued in the contempt proceedings. The interference is only to the extent....
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....nal Side of the High Court". Therefore, it is fairly clear that the court had in mind the entire compensation paid by the NHAI in respect of the land acquired by them. Since the NHAI was bound to deduct TDS, an amount of Rs. 10,55,60,331/- was paid to the Income-Tax Department. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the said amount formed part of the compensation. What the court in its order dated 23.02.2011 was requested and the court intended too was to protect the compensation amount. Merely because it goes through the Income-Tax Department, the same does not cease to be part of compensation. Even the respondents herein had submitted before the court at the time of passing the order dated 23.02.2011 that the compensation amount needed to be protected and they were willing to protect it subject to the order of the court. Therefore, the respondents, while handling of the compensation amount, had to seek orders from the court; going by the way they understood the proceedings. 20. In that background of the case, we are of the view that the respondents should not have appropriated the refund they received from the Income-Tax Department. There is nothing wrong in claiming the refund. ....
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....8,85,198/- towards arrear wages, arrear ex gratia payment, arrear gratuity and other arrear dues of the workmen." 22. It is also seen from the order that the Division Bench had taken note of the paltry balance in the accounts of the company as on 27.06.2015. To quote: "We directed the company to furnish us with details of its bank operations. It appears that the company has about twelve bank accounts in operation in India and the combined balance in all these accounts taken together as on 27th June, 2015 was Rs. 13,96,188.79P. Our attention has been drawn by Mr. Mookherjee to the fact that there are three other bank accounts with combined balance of not more than Rs. 3,44,436/- which have not been used for over seven years and the company also has a bank account outside India that has a balance of 936 pounds [less than Rs. 1,00,000/- in value in Indian currency]." 23. It may be seen that the respondents have been managing the affairs of the company for a few years despite the futile attempts made by them to withdraw the compensation lying in deposit in court. 24. As held by this Court in Delhi Development Authority v. Skipper Construction Co. (P) Ltd. and another (1996) 4 SCC ....