S SUNDARAM PILLAI Vs. P GOVINDASWAMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition is directed against a wholly unsustainable order which has the effect of divesting the petitioners of ownership of 12,387 shares by an ad interim mandatory injunction which has been almost machanically passed by the trial Court.

(2.) It is not necessary to go into the merits of the suit which the Plaintiff-respondent 1 has filed in the City Civil Court, Madras, in which substantially the Plaintiffs case is that the first and second defendants (Petitioners 1 and 2) on behalf of defendants 3 to 21 (Petitioners 3 to 21) in the suit had agreed to transfer to the Plaintiff 16,387 equity shares of Messrs. Century Flour Mills Limited, Madras, respondent 2 herein.

(3.) Respondent 2 herein is a Public Limited Company hereinafter referred to as the Company, in which admittedly defendants 1 to 20 had obtained 12,387 shares in pursuance of an agreement between the plaintiff and defendants dt. 12-12-1976. One of the terms of the agreement dt. 12-12-1976 was that the first, second and third defendants were to be made Directors, out of whom the first defendant was to be the full-time Director of the Company. The defendant 21 also owns 4000 shares in the company. According to the Plaintiff, these shares were transferred to the defendant 1 in pursuance of an arrangement under which defendant 21 had advanced a loan to the plaintiff and it was agreed that the defendant 2 was to be eligible only to the interest and other benefits arising out of these shares. The plaintiff has already filed a suit C.S. No. 458 of 1983 on the original side of this Court for a declaration of ownership of those shares and an injunction has been issued to the 21st defendant restraining him from in any manner dealing with those 4000 shares. That order has later been vacated and an appeal filed by the plaintiff against the order vacating the injunction was later withdrawn.