VIJAYAN RAJES S/O MSP RAJES; MADHUMATHI, V RAJES W/O VIJAYAN PAJES Vs. MSP PLANTATIONS PRIVATE LIMITED, MSP RAJES; MSP RAJES S/O M S PERIASAMY NADAR; PHILOMENA PERIS RAJES W/O LATE CHARLES PETER PERIS; VAP SIVASAMY S/O PALANISAMY NADAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal under Section 10P of the Companies Act, 1956 [for short, the Act] by the persons who were petitioners in Company Petition No. 51 of 1996, on the file of the Company Law Board, Principal Bench, Chennai, who had presented the petition under Sections 397 and 398 of the Act seeking for the relief in respect of the acts and oppressions complained against the management and majority shareholders of M/s MSP Plantations Private Limited, Bangalore, as the petition came to be dismissed in terms of the impugned order dated 30-9-1998 and being aggrieved by the dismissal of the petition.

(2.) It is urged in the memorandum of appeal that the Company Law Board has not. taken into consideration the relevant aspects and materials which had been placed by the appellants-petitioners before the Company Law Board; that even without any worthwhile opposition to the company petition on the part of the respondents in the petition, Company Law Beard has erroneously dismissed the petition, that the board has failed in its function in not taking into account and examining the various acts of mismanagement and oppression which had been committed by the majority shareholders of the respondent-company and against which the appellant had complained of; that even without a proper intimation and notice to the appellants, they had been virtually thrown out of the company by the differential treatment meted out to them as preference shareholders, more so when, apart from the preference shareholders, the only other shareholder of the company was M/s MSP Investments Ltd., and therefore the uneven treatment meted out to the appellants-petitioners did constitute an act of oppression and the Company Law Board holding otherwise is not tenable in law. Various other grounds have also been urged in support of the appeal.

(3.) The appeal, which had been originally filed and numbered as MFA No. 5457 of 1998 [filed on 5-12-1998], has been subsequently renumbered as Company Appeal No. 12 of 2005.