- (1.) Respondents No. 1 to 5 have filed the instant CA No. 194/C-1/2016 challenging the maintainability of Company Petition No. 52(ND) of 2016.
(2.) It is the case of the applicants that the Company Petition is liable to be dismissed at the very threshold as the petitioners here in have no locus standi to file the petition. It is contended that the Petitioners were neither the shareholders nor the members of the respondent No. 1 company as on date of presentation of the company petition or even as on date. As the petitioners do not hold the requisite 1/10th share of the total shareholding of the company as required under Section 399 of the Companies Act 1956, they have no right to file the company petition under Section 397 or 398. Ld. Counsel for the applicants emphasised that the provisions contained in Section 399 in regard to entertainability/maintainability of the company petition are mandatory and pre-emptory in nature.
(3.) It is pertinent to note here that the company petition has been filed inter-alia to rectify the Register of members and to restore the shareholding of the petitioners to the original level of 84% of the total share capital of the respondent No. 1 company as of March 16, 2013. The main grievance of the petitioners is that in the entire of the shareholding has been fraudulently and illegally transferred by respondents on 25th March 2013.;