M.L. LAKHOTIA AND OTHERS Vs. THE STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are being prosecuted for offences punishable under Sec. 22 read with Ss. 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 Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices 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 for under Sec. 22(1) of the Act. Admittedly, the petitioners in this case were directors of M/s. Indian Tool Manufacturers Ltd. Notices were issued to them from 1971 onwards stating that the company was to be registerable then under Sec. 26 of the Act on the relevant date. This was so required on the ground that it fell within Sec. 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 a reply to it was sent. These issues are, however, the subject matter of the main dispute and a finding is yet to be recorded on the question as to whether the company was registrable at any date before February 25, 1983, when, for the first time, the company itself made an application for registration under Sec. 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 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 as to whether, on the relevant date on which the petitioners applied for the registration, the company was or was not registrable under Sec. 26 of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices 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 Sec. 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the reason for making a delayed complaint advanced by the complainant that the names of the directors of the company were not known to them till October 1, 1986, is absolutely wrong.

(3.) The second contention of learned counsel for the petitioners is that the offence under Sec. 22 of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices 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.