LADLI PARSHAD Vs. KARNAL DISTILLERY CO LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Letters Patent appeal from an order by Falshaw J. dismissing the appellants' application for the compulsory winding-up of a company called the Karnal Distillery Company Limited.

(2.) The relevant facts are these. The Company in question is a private limited concern incorporated in the year 1941 with its registered office at Kamal. The shareholders were Mr. Ladli Prashad Jaiswal appellant and his brothers and the control of the business was for some time with him. Later on, however, disputes arose among the members of the family ranging over a number of subjects and a long period of time and culminating in the removal of the appellant from the office of Chairman of the Company sometime in March 1946. On 1st May 1946 therefore Mr. Ladli Parshad Jaiswal filed an application in the High Court at Lahore for the winding-up of this Company. That petition, we understand, is still pending in that Court and although, we are told by Mr. Tuli appearing lor the appellant, that he had made a prayer to withdraw that petition at one time the prayer was not allowed.

(3.) In December 1951 the present petition for the winding-up of the Company was made in this Court on behalf of Mr. Ladli Parshad Jaiswal and one Mr. Jai Chand, the latter claiming to be a creditor of the Company to the extent of over Rs. 7,000/- and alleging that the Company was commercially insolvent and unable to pay its debts. One of the objections taken to this petition was that it was not maintainable at all in view of the previously filed petition in the Lahore High Court which had not been decided. This objection has been allowed to prevail by the learned Liquidation Judge and the petition therefore dismissed, and the only question for our consideration is whether the view of the learned Single Judge that the present petition does not lie in view of the pending petition in the Lahore High Court, is or is not correct. The learned Judge has held-