KOSHIKA TELECOM LTD. Vs. IFCI LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN the present contempt matter INdustrial Finance Corporation of INdia Ltd.(,,IFCI in short), its CEO-cum-Managing Director Mr. Atul Kumar Rai, Ms. Shalini Soni, Assistant General Manager (Law) of IFCI and one Recovery Officer attached to the Debts Recovery Tribunal-I, Delhi Mr.R.K.Bansal have been held guilty of having committed contempt of this Court and are now awaiting further decision of this Court regarding the punishment to be awarded to them.

(2.) BEFORE proceeding further to pronounce the punishment for the contemnors, the facts and circumstances leading to the conviction of the four contemnors may once again be noticed since those facts and circumstances shall have a bearing even on the point of punishment to be awarded to the contemnors. Contempt proceedings were initiated initially at the instance of the Official Liquidator only against contemnor Ms.Shalini Soni. The initiation of contempt proceedings was ordered when the Official Liquidator had informed this Court during the pendency of the winding up proceedings in this Court in respect of one telecom Company by the name of M/s Koshika Telecom Ltd.(hereinafter to be referred as ,,Koshika) that some of the assets of this Company had been auctioned at the instance of IFCI by the Debts Recovery Tribunal-I, Delhi(DRT), where proceedings had been initiated by IFCI against Koshika for recovery of over two hundred crores of rupees. Out of the sale proceeds of the auctioned CCP (CO.) NO.30/2010 IN CO.PET.NO. 75/2002 assets of Koshika about twelve crores were permitted by the Recovery Officer attached to the DRT to be retained by IFCI. The Official Liquidator had sought certain directions to IFCI from this Court and one of those was a direction to IFCI to remit to the Official Liquidator the sale proceeds of the assets of Koshika which it was having. On 08.10.2009 this Court had passed an order directing IFCI to remit the money to the Official Liquidator. That direction was duly communicated to IFCI through the contemnor Ms. Shalini Soni who had been pursuing the recovery case against Koshika before the DRT. However, that direction was not complied with by IFCI and so the Official Liquidator filed an application for initiating contempt proceedings against Ms. Shalini Soni.

(3.) MR. Atul Kumar Rai, CEO & Managing Director of IFCI as well as MR. R.K.Bansal submitted their replies and they also pleaded that they had all the respect for the orders of this Court and had not disobeyed any direction of this Court. MR.Rai while pleading that IFCI as a public finance institution had all the respect for judicial orders took a plea that the order dated 08.10.2009 of this Court was not even brought to the notice of Ms. Shalini Soni during her meeting with the Official Liquidator on 26.10.2009 and for the first time copy of that order was supplied to IFCI by the Official Liquidator alongwith its reply to the IFCIs application which it had moved before the Recovery Officer seeking his permission to appropriate the sale proceeds. This Court, however, rejected the explanation of MR. Rai as being false since Ms. Shalini Soni herself had not taken the stand in her reply that she was not aware of the order dated 08.10.2009 of this Court.