BENJARAM SREENIVASA REDDY Vs. REGISTRAR OF COMPANIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FEELING aggrieved by the failure of the Company Law Board, Chennai Bench, to issue a prior notice and hear them on the quantum of compounding fees required to be paid by them under Section 621A of the Companies Act, 1956 (for short the Act), the appellants filed the present appeal.

(2.) UPON noticing that the Company Law Board, Chennai Bench, has not been following Regulation 29 of the Company Law Board Regulations 1991 (for short the Regulations), this Court has impleaded the Company Law Board, Chennai Bench, and directed the presence of the Bench Officer by order dated 18.06.2014. In compliance with the direction of this Court, the Bench Officer was personally present on 30.06.2014 and he has conceded that no order fixing the fine under Section 162(1) of the Act was passed.

(3.) MR . P. Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, the then Assistant Solicitor General, while candidly conceding that the Company Law Board has not been following this procedure in applications filed for compounding the offences and that instead the quantum of compounding fee was being intimated to the applicants in an informal manner without there being an order in writing, has requested for an adjournment for filing an affidavit undertaking to follow the above -mentioned procedure.