KRISHNENDU SIRCAR Vs. REKHA SIRCAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There is a common thread that runs through the clutch of insolvency petitions. Indeed, the common thread travels beyond these petitions and envelopes other debtors' petitions claiming insolvency filed in the last three years.

(2.) What started apparently innocuously has blown the cover off a colossal saga of procured orders, intrigue and possible conspiracy. Orders of adjudication in insolvency matters were apparently up for sale, complete with posters on walls and lampposts, advertisements in newspapers and soliciting on the internet. A century-old practice of this Court has been turned on its head and the process abused whereby orders of adjudication on debtors' claims of insolvency have appeared as items of merchandise.

(3.) The several debtors' petitions claiming insolvency carry IC numbers. The applications made in the insolvency proceedings carry GA numbers, every GA application being pegged to an insolvency petition. In the first matter, involving the son and mother duo of Krishnendu and Rekha Sircar, five sets of creditors have applied for investigation into the circumstances relating to the order of adjudication and the conduct of the proceedings. The creditors have also sought annulment of the order of adjudication. The apparently innocent application that triggered off the avalanche of protest by creditors and brought to light what had been passed off as a judicial process was a plea by the petitioning-debtors in IC No. 145 of 2008 seeking a stay of the criminal proceedings launched against them by their creditors. On such debtors' original application, GA No. 2079 of 2009, a limited stay of the criminal proceedings was granted on August 14, 2009. GA No. 20 of 2010 was brought by the mother and son duo for a continuation of the blanket immunity against criminal proceedings. This opened the floodgates as private banks and finance companies came pouring in complaining of a vicious clique, involving some lawyers and officials, that peddled in adjudication orders to debtors unwilling to repay their creditors. GA No. 2079 of 2009 has since been withdrawn by the petitioning-debtors consequent whereupon GA No. 20 of 2010 has no further legs to stand on. But the lid has come off one of the biggest conspiracies carried out in these hallowed precincts.