M L LAKHOTIA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are being prosecuted for the offences punishable under section 22 read with sections 46 and 53 of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 (hereinafter referred to as the 'MRTP Act'). Before I take up for consideration the main grievance of the petitioners, reference may be made to the scheme of the MRTP Act. On the relevant date it made it obligatory for a company having assets worth more than Rs. 20 crores to be registered. It further commands that no new undertaking can be started without the permission of the Government. This is specifically provided under sectios 22 (1) of the Act. Admittedly, the petitioners in this case were directors of M/s. Indian Tools Manufacturers Ltd. Notices were issued to them from 1971 onwards that the company was to be registerable then under section 26 of the Act on the relevant dale. This was so required on the ground that it fell within section 20 of the Act on the relevant date. This dispute continued but it seems that somewhere in December 1975 the notices were dropped. In 1978 again a similar notice was sent to the company and reply to it was sent. These issues are, however, subject matter of main dispute and finding is yet to be recorded on the question as to whether the company was registerable at any date before February 25, 1983 when for the first time the company itself made an application for registration under section 26 of the said Act. It appears that the company in between made an application to the Textile Commissioner to set up a man-made fibre spinning unit and the permission was granted to it on May 29,1980, This unit went into commercial production for the first time on March 26, 1982.

(2.) Learned counsel for the plaintiff, however, frankly admitted that he does not want this court to go into the respective claims of the parties whether on the relevant date the petitioners applied for ibe registration the company was not registerable under section 26 of the MR TP Act as it was in existence then. He has, however, raised three important questions which are that admittedly according to the complainant the offence was committed on March 26,1982 and the complaint was filed on May 4,1987. According to him the complaint is hopelessly barred under section 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and' the reason Tor making a delayed complaint advanced by the complainant that the names of the directors of the compa.ny were .not known to them till October 1,1986 is absolutely wrong.

(3.) The second contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the offence under section 22 of the MRTP Act is the establishment of a new unit and this is admittedly being established within the State of Maharashtra and that the court in Delhi has no jurisdiction as such to entertain the complaint as according to the legal principles the offence is to be tried within the jurisdiction of the court where it is committed.