BAKHTAWAR CONSTRUCTION CO PVT LTD Vs. BLOSSOM BREWERIES LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners herein, in the petition filed under Section 248/250 of the Companies Act, 1956, in the matter of Blossom Breweries Limited, have sought that the Company Law Board should direct the respondents herein to furnish various details regarding shares in the company. When the matter was taken up for hearing, Shri Sarkar,, appearing for the respondents, raised the following preliminary objections with the prayer that the order on the preliminary objections be issued before proceeding with the merits of the case. THE objections raised by him are :

(2.) Dealing with these objections, Shri Sarkar pointed out, that, even though the Company Law Board has held, in an earlier proceeding, (Padma Taparia v. Assam Brook Ltd. [1996] 3 Comp L] 396) ; [1997] 88 Comp Cas 838, that an independent petition can lie under Section 250(1), this decision does not seem to be correct and as such cannot be relied on in these proceedings. To substantiate his point, he submitted that before 1991, proceedings under Section 247/248 were the main proceedings and Section 250 was only subsidiary in nature. For invoking the powers under Section 247/248, some other proceedings like proceedings under Section 397/398 or other proceedings like Section 250(3) or (4) should be before the Company Law Board so that, to give reliefs in those proceedings, the powers under Section 250(2) could be invoked since the reliefs under Section 250(2) are of interim nature. Therefore, he submitted that by making a petition under Section 250(1), no proceedings can deem to start for invoking the powers under Section 247 or 248. He further stated that since these proceedings are not adversarial in nature, even if the Company Law Board collects the information as provided under Section 248, the same cannot be made available to the petitioners to enable them to start collateral proceedings. Now that the petitioners have withdrawn the petition under Section 247 and since neither Section 250(1) nor Section 248 provides for grant of any relief to the petitioners as such, there is no purpose in collecting the information as sought for in the petition. According to him, this itself would substantiate his stand that unless otherwise there are certain main proceedings, powers under Section 248 cannot be invoked.' Pointing out to the wording of Section 250 that "there is good reason to find out the relevant facts about any shares and the Company Law Board 1 is of the opinion that such facts cannot be found out . . .", he submitted that the prima facie view formed by the Company Law Board cannot be the basis for passing any final order, which according to him, is also not provided for in that section. To strengthen his arguments on the preliminary issue, he submitted that, in the absence of any qualification to file a petition under Section 250(1), as it found under Section 235, the Company Law Board should reconsider its decision in Padrna Taparia v. Assam Brook Ltd. [199G] 3 Comp L) 396 ; [1997] 88 Comp Cas 838 and dismiss this petition as not maintainable under Section 250(1). Once such an order is passed, this petition cannot stand on its own under Section 248.

(3.) SITUATIONS contemplated under Section 247/248 are present, the petitioner can move this petition under Section 250(1) wherein specific provision has been made that a complaint could be made "in this behalf".