Hon’ble Mr. R.Varadharajan and Hon’ble Mr. V.K.Subburaj of the Hon’ble National Company Law Tribunal at Delhi reprimanded the petitioner, Mr. Ajay Batra and others by disallowing the restoration application seeking rectification of the register of members of BHP Machines Ltd. Restoration application in the 2007 Company Petition which was previously dismissed for non prosecution, was disallowed by the Hon’ble NCLT. The Company Petition was filed by Mr. Ajay Batra against his father and other family members in order to takeover the company.
The Hon’ble NCLT after hearing the arguments of Mr. Deepak Jain, Advocate {LL.M (Comm’l Laws, P.U.) LL.M (I.E.L Warwick, U.K), PIL (Harvard)} appearing on behalf of the respondents(shareholders), took serious note on the conduct of the petitioner seeking adjournments along with repeatedly engaging different sets of lawyers at times in order to waste the time and hoodwink the Hon’ble Tribunal.
Further it was pointed out by Mr. Deepak Jain, that the petitioners had hidden various important facts including a will which was executed by the father of the petitioner.
Mr. Deepak Jain, cited various judgments of the Hon’ble Supreme Court wherein Hon’ble Justice Dipak Misra (Former CJI) delineated the responsibility of the Bar as well as the Bench in relation to its conduct, which was reproduced in the Order of the Hon’ble NCLT, which is to the following effect.
“In the case at hand, as we perceive, the learned counsel sought adjournment after adjournment in a nonchalant manner and the same were granted in a routine fashion. It is the duty of the counsel as the officer of the court to assist the court in a properly prepared manner and not to seek unnecessary adjournments. Getting an adjournment is neither an art nor science. It has never been appreciated by the courts. All who are involved in the justice dispensation system, which includes the Judges, the lawyers, the judicial officers who work in courts, the law officers of the State, the Registry and the litigants, have to show dedicated diligence so that a controversy is put to rest. Shifting the blame is not the cure. Acceptance of responsibility and dealing with it like a captain in the frontier is the necessity of the time. It is worthy to state that diligence brings satisfaction. There has to be strong resolve in the mind to carry out the responsibility with devotion. A time has come when all concerned are required to abandon idleness and arouse oneself and see to it that the syndrome of delay does not erode the concept of dispensation of expeditious justice which is the constitutional command. Sagacious acceptance of the deviation and necessitous steps taken for the redressal of the same would be a bright lamp which would gradually become a laser beam. This is the expectation of the collective, and the said expectation has to become a reality. Expectations are not to remain at the stage of hope. They have to be metamorphosed to actuality. Long back, Francis Bacon, in his aphoristic style, had said, “Hope is good breakfast, but it is bad supper”. We say no more on this score.”
The Hon’ble Tribunal after taking the arguments and submissions into consideration, was pleased to dismiss the restoration application filed by the petitioner.
