RAMAKRISHNA INDUSTRIALS PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. P R RAMAKRISHNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is from an interlocutory order of Shanmukham, J. The order directed the appointment of a number of Advocates as Court Commissioners to take an inventory of the assets and accounts of a Company in Coimbatore. The Company is the appellant before us. It contends that the order is wrong.

(2.) Vasantha Pai, learned counsel appearing for the contesting respondents, raises a preliminary objection. He says that we should not entertain this appeal.

(3.) The appeal is filed under section 483 of the Companies Act, 1956. This section provides for an appeal against any order passed by a Court of first instance in a winding up matter. The section says that an appeal is available against such an order in the same way as an appeal is available from any other order of a Court for which the law provides. This is the substance of the words of the section. They are fairly wide words in which the appeal provision is cast. But the Supreme Court in Shankarlal Aggarwals case1, have said that a Court of appeal cannot entertain any and every appeal in a winding up matter merely because the section provides for it. They said that the appellant must show the appellate Court that some right has been affected by the order in question. Quoting this position, Mr. Vasantha Pai raised the query: What is it that the Company has lost by this order" You do not lose any assets by counting them, he said, although by not counting them there is a chance of some assets being lost sight of. He pursued this line of argument further, thus: The Company every year prepares inventories for its balance-sheet. They are a necessary part of annual accounting. The inventory order passed by Shanmukham, J., cannot be unwelcome since it only gives the Company a picture here and now, of its assets. Nobody need have to wait for the position to emerge by the year-end to find out an upto date account of the assets.