KISHORE Y PATEL Vs. PATEL ENGINEERING COMPANY LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiffs are shareholders of Patel Engineering Company Limited, the 1st defendant company in this suit. The defendants Nos. 2 to 8 are also the shareholders of the 1st defendant company. There are two groups of shareholders in this company who are continuously fighting for its control and management since quite sometime i. e. (1) Y. G. Patel Group represented by the plaintiffs and (2) Pravin Patel Group represented by the defendants. Having regard to the verdict of Extra-ordinary General Meeting of the company held on 8th May 1990 under the chairmanship of retired Judge of this Court, Shri D. M. Rege, and the realities of situation, it can be safely stated that the defendants group is the majority group and the plaintiffs group is the minority group. On 24th June 1991, the plaintiffs filed this suit seeking to obtain several reliefs against defendants Nos. 2 to 7. By prayer (a) of the plaint, the plaintiffs have prayed that the defendants Nos. 2 to 7 be decreed to pay a sum of Rs. 511 lacs to the 1st defendant company along with further interest on the sum of Rs. 470 lacs at 18% per annum from the date of the suit till judgment and thereafter till payment and realisation. The plaintiffs have described the action as a derivative action. By prayer (b) of the plaint, the plaintiffs have sought a declaration in the following terms:-

(2.) BY this notice of motion, the plaintiffs have sought a direction from this Honble Court to appoint a retired High Court Judge or some other fit and proper person to be the Chairman of the Extra-ordinary General Meeting of the 1st defendant company scheduled to be held on 9th July 1991. By the said prayer, the plaintiffs have also sought relief to the effect that such independent chairman should address letters to the members of the 1st defendant company who are alleged to have addressed proxies asking them to confirm in writing to such independent chairman whether they have in fact executed the proxies or not. Prayer (a) (iii) of the notice of motion is too general. By Prayer (a) (iv) of the notice of motion the plaintiffs are seeking appointment as Court Receiver, High Court, Bombay, as the Receiver as all the books of accounts papers, documents and records of the 1st defendant company including those pertaining to the Doha Arbitration Claim (and in particular correspondence exchanged between the 1st defendant company and the 9th defendant and/or the Government of Qatar) as also all statutory records and proxies wherever located, with all powers under Order XL, Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

(3.) WHEN an application for ad-interim relief was made to me on behalf of the plaintiffs, I decided to grant an opportunity to the contesting defendants to file their affidavit, if any, to oppose the application by Friday, the 28th June 1991, and fixed the application on 1st July 1991. This application was extensively argued by the learned Counsel for the parties on 1st July 1991 and 2nd July 1991. Having regard to the citation of number of authorities and the length of the arguments, I had to reserve my orders and the matter was kept today for dictating orders.