Satish Kumar Mittal, J. - (1.) THE official liquidator has filed this application for confirmation of the sale of the movable and immovable properties of M/s. Scanomax India Ltd., a company under liquidation, in favour of M/s. International Fresh Farm Products (India) Ltd., Mohali (respondent No. 4 herein) who is the highest bidder in the sale conducted by the sale committee constituted by this court.
(2.) VIDE order dated February 21, 1997, passed by this court in C.P. No. 7 of 1996, M/s. Scanomax India Ltd., was ordered to be wound up and official liquidator attached to this court was appointed as its liquidator. Subsequently, the movable and immovable properties of the company under liquidation were sold by the official liquidator in a public auction for Rs. 2.50 crores, but the sale was not confirmed by this court vide order dated September 21, 2006, passed in C.A. No. 591 of 2006. While passing the said order, this court constituted a sale committee under the chairmanship of Shri I.P. Singh, advocate of this court with the representatives of the secured creditors and official liquidator as its members. The said sale committee in its meeting dated October 18, 2006, decided to get fresh valuation of the assets/properties of the company under liquidation. The said valuation was got conducted from M/s. NITCON, a Government enterprise through Punjab Financial Corporation, one of the secured creditors. After receiving the said valuation report by the chairman of the sale committee, the said valuation report was made available to all the members of the sale committee including all the secured creditors in the meeting dated March 12, 2007. According to the said report, the distress value of the assets of the company under liquidation, which was to be sold, was assessed at Rs. 402.14 lakhs. All the secured creditors were satisfied with said valuation report and no objection was raised to the same by any of the members of the sale committee, including representatives of the secured creditors. Thereafter, wide publicity was given by the sale committee regarding auction of the assets of the company under liquidation by publishing sale notice in the The Tribune (Chandigarh edition), Punjab Kesari, Jalandhar, The Economic Times (Delhi edition) and The Economic Times (Chandigarh edition) and the date of opening the tenders was fixed on April 24, 2007. On April 24, 2007, all the tenders were opened in the presence of the members of the sale committee. For composite lot of the properties/assets of the company under liquidation, four tenders were received. The highest tender was of M/s. V.G. International, Gurgaon, who gave the bid for Rs. 3.55 crores, M/s. International Fresh Farm Products (I.) Ltd., (respondent No. 4 herein) gave a bid for Rs. 2.75 crores. The other two bidders gave the bid of Rs. 2.31 crores and 2.21 crores. Subsequently, on the same date in the same meeting, further inter se bidding between the bidders was conducted and in that process M/s. International Fresh Farm Products (I) Ltd., (respondent No. 4 herein) gave the highest bid of Rs. 4.21 crores. All the members of the sale committee present in the meeting showed their satisfaction to the auction proceedings as well as the amount offered in the bidding, which was more than the distress value fixed in the valuation report. However, it was agreed that the final decision with regard to the acceptance of the highest bid will be taken after the representatives of the secured creditors get approval from their competent authority. For that purpose, the representatives of the secured creditors were given 15 days time to get the necessary approval from the competent authority, and 15 days time was also given to the highest bidder after the receipt of such approval to deposit 25 per cent, of the bid money after adjusting the initial earnest money. The representatives of the secured creditors were requested to ensure that the decision regarding seeking approval from the competent authority should be taken by all the secured creditors within that 15 days period so that proceedings of the auction could be finalized.
(3.) WITHIN 15 days, all the secured creditors, including PSIDC, intimated in writing to the official liquidator that the highest bid given by International Fresh Farm Products (I) Ltd., (respondent No. 4 herein) has been accepted by the competent authority. The letter given by PSIDC to the official liquidator is dated May 4, 2007, which has been annexed with this application as annexure A6. After receiving the intimation from all the secured creditors, the official liquidator accepted 25 per cent, of the bid amount paid by respondent No. 4 towards the sale consideration. When all the formalities were completed, the official liquidator filed the instant application for confirmation of the sale.;