ASIATIC ENGINEERING CO Vs. ACHHRU RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two applications under Article 226 of the Constitution praying that this Court might be pleased to issue writs in the nature of certiorari, prohibition & mandamus for different acts alleged to have been done by the respondents. The first of these applications has been filed by the Asiatic Engineering Co. Ltd. (hereinafter called the Company) & its writ application number is 287 of 1950. The second application has been presented to this Court by a foreign Company, the Amin Agencies Ltd., & its number is 288 of 1950. Broadly speaking, the main facts which have given rise to them are the same, but we propose first of all to set out in brief the salient features of application No. 287 & thereafter deal with those distinguishing facts on which application No. 288 of 1950 is founded.

(2.) The Company was incorporated as a private company under the Indian Companies Act in 1941 & has its registered office at 25/26 Waterloo Street, Calcutta, in the State of West Bengal. It is stated in the petition that the Company had & still has its registered office at Calcutta & branch offices at, inter alia, Kanpur & London. The words "inter alia" appear to have been used, whether deliberately or not, only to conceal the fact that the Company also functions at Karachi in Pakistan.

(3.) The main business this Company appears to have been carrying on is that of importing machinery from abroad and repairing & reconditioning it. For this purpose it used to maintain two establishments, one at Kanpur & the other at Calcutta. Though it is alleged in the petition that the Hindu share-holders were numerically more than the Muslim share-holders of the Company, yet it would appear that the value of the shares held by the Hindu members of the Company at the time of the petition was negligible as compared with that held by the Muslim share-holders.