SOUTHERN PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRIES CORPORATION LTD Vs. ADMINISTRATOR OF SPECIFIED UNDERTAKING OF UNIT TRUST OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Misc. appeal is filed by appellants/ original defendants being aggrieved by common Order dated 12.2.2004 passed by the learned Presiding Officer of Debts Recovery Tribunal-I, Mumbai. By the impugned common order, the learned. Presiding Officer, while allowing applications made by the respondent Nos. 1 and 2 for amendment as set out in the schedules of their applications, dismissed the application of the appellants taken out by them for dismissing the original application. The respondent No. 1 is the Administrator of Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India in his capacity as successor in interest of Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India, a statutory corporation constituted under Unit Trust of India Act, 1963 (since repealed) and the respondent No. 2 is UTI Trustee Company Pvt, Ltd. in its capacity as successor in interest of Undertaking (excluding Specified Undertaking) of Unit Trust of India.

(2.) The respondent Nos. 1 and 2 who are the original applicants in Original Application No. 79/2002 and Original Application No. 23/2003 had taken out applications for amendment in the cause title of their respective original applications for substituting names of administrator of specified undertakings and UTI Trustee Company Pvt. Ltd. in the place of Unit Trust of India, The appellants application was for dismissal of the original application itself on the ground that none of the Administrators of Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India and UTI Trustee Company Pvt. Ltd, after bifurcation of Unit Trust of India, was either a bank or a financial institution. The appellants had challenged jurisdiction of the Tribunal to entertain, try and dispose of the original application.

(3.) THIS application of the appellants/defendants was hotly contested by the respondent Nos. 1 and 2. It was contended that Section 18 the Unit Trust o.f India (Transfer of Undertaking and Repeal)"Act, 2002 made it explicitly clear that there was no choice and the words "Administrator of the Specified Undertakings of UTI or UTI Trustee Company should be substituted in all Acts, Rules, Regulations and Notifications and, therefore, even if all such Rules and Regulations were not physically amended, one had to read them as stated in Section 18 of the New Act, lest Section 18 would be meaningless.