Ruma Pal, J. - (1.) The respondent filed an application for winding up Bengal Lamps Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "the company"). The petition was admitted by an order dated March 6, 1990. An appeal was preferred against the order by the company. This application has been filed in the appeal for stay of the order dated March 6, 1990. More than two months after the filing of the appeal, a reference was made by the company under Sec. 15 of the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provisions) Act to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (hereinafter referred to as "the Board") constituted under the Act. The reference has been registered by the secretary of the Board under regulation 19 of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction Regulations, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as "the Regulations"), on June 25, 1990. These facts were brought on record by way of a supplementary affidavit filed by the company.
(2.) The only question to be determined is whether, under these circumstances, the winding up proceedings against the company must be stayed under the provisions of Sec. 22(1) of the Act. No other point has been put forward in support of the stay application on behalf of the company.
(3.) It is contended by Mr. H. K. Mitra, appearing for the company, that the winding up proceedings must be stayed. In support of this contention, the following submissions have been made : (i) Immediately upon the registration of the reference, an enquiry under Sec. 16 must be said to be pending within the meaning of Sec. 22(1) of the Act. According to Mr. Mitra, after the registration of a reference under Sec. 15, the Board has no option but to hold an enquiry under Sec. 16 of the Act. It is argued by way of analogy that a suit is said to be pending when it is filed and not only when the court takes up the suit for hearing. Similarly, according to him, an enquiry is pending when the reference is made and - not only when the enquiry is in fact held. (ii) It was further argued by Mr. Mitra that the preamble of the Act would indicate that the Act is a remedial measure for rehabilitation of sick companies and that the object of the Act would be frustrated if the winding up proceedings were permitted to be continued after the reference was made and before the Board had an opportunity of considering the case. In support of this proposition, reliance has been placed on a passage from Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes, twelfth edition, page 45, which reads as follows : "If the choice is between two interpretations, the narrower of which would fail to achieve the manifest purpose of the legislation, we should avoid a construction which would reduce the legislation to futility and should rather accept the bolder construction based on the view that Parliament would legislate only for the purpose of bringing about an effective result." (iii) It is also contended by Mr. Mitra that, in the event there was any doubt regarding the construction to be put on Ss. 15, 16 and 22 of the Act, the doubt should be resolved in favour of the company on the principle that the Act is a beneficial piece of legislation. In support of this argument, Mr. Mitra has relied upon a passage in Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes, twelfth edition, page 92 : ". ..... even where the usual meaning of the words falls short of the object of the Legislature, a more extended meaning may be attributed to them, if they are fairly susceptible of it ...... this relaxation of strictly literal principles of interpretation "(has been referred to) as beneficial construction : and the modern cases provide many instances of the judge's reluctance to stand upon the letter of a statute. They will not, of course, supply omissions, but where they are faced with a choice between a wide meaning which carries out what appears to have been the object of the Legislature more fully, and a narrow meaning which carries it out less fully or not at all, they will often choose the former. Beneficial construction is a tendency, rather than a rule." Reliance was also placed on the decision of Pilcher J. in Estate of Rippon [1943] 1 All ER 676. (iv) It is lastly contended by Mr. Mitra that in the event the Board has an option not to hold an enquiry under Sec. 16 and chooses not to do so, an appeal could be preferred under the Act by any aggrieved person to the appellate authority from such refusal. In such case, even though the Board has not commenced the enquiry under Sec. 16(1), the provisions of Sec. 22(1) would in terms be immediately applicable.;