What special position is held by the Calcutta high court vis a vis other courts in India.
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Answer:
Explanation:
The Calcutta High Court is one of the three High Courts in India established at the Presidency Towns by Letters patent granted by Queen Victoria, bearing date 26 June 1862, and is the oldest High Court in India. It was established as the High Court of Judicature at Fort William on 1 July 1862 under the High Courts Act, 1861, which was preceded by the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William.
Despite the name of the city having officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001, the Court, as an institution retained the old name. The bill to rename it as Kolkata High Court was approved by the Cabinet on 5 July 2016 along with the renaming of its two other counterparts in Chennai and Mumbai.[3] However, the High Court still retains the old name.
Answer:
A question that has often come up since the Companies Act, 2013 (the 2013 Act) came into force is how will proceedings ongoing before the High Courts be transferred to the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT)? Section 434(1)(c) of the 2013 Act deals with transfer of “all proceedings” under the Companies Act, 1956[1] to the NCLT. For winding up proceedings, this provision states that only such proceedings relating to winding up, which are at a certain stage as prescribed by central Government, are to be transferred to the NCLT. Another part of this provision, meanwhile, deals with cases other than winding up proceedings, which may not be transferred to the NCLT.[2] A reading of all the various provisions leads to the conclusion that not all proceedings under the 1956 Act pending before the District Courts and High Courts are to be transferred to the NCLT.
A recent division bench judgment of the Calcutta High Court in Prasanta Kumar Mitra & Ors. v. India Steam Laundry (P) Ltd. & Ors attempted to throw light on the issue. The question before the Court was: “Whether the term “all” and “including” in Section 434(1)(c) of the 2013 [Companies] Act are expansive in nature or the same is to be read in a restrictive manner?” [3] The Court held: “The term ‘including’ in section 434(1)(c) of the 2013 Act is extensive and expansive and not restrictive in nature. Accordingly, Section 434(1)(c) of the 2013 Act that states “all proceedings under the Companies Act 2013 including proceedings relating to…” would include all matters, without any exception, pending before the District High Courts and High Court and all such matters would have to be transferred to the NCLT.”
The use of the phrase “all matters” in this decision seems to be at variance with the Section itself as well as with the Transfer Rules and the provisos added to Section 434(1)(c) by the 2016 Order, which provide that certain matters will not be transferred. Did the Calcutta High Court actually then mean “all matters” under Section 434? We examine the issue.
What the Case Held
The case before the Calcutta High Court pertained to an oppression and mismanagement proceeding that was filed in 1988. Thereafter, the 1988 Amendment to the Companies Act came in, which granted jurisdiction to the Company Law Board to hear such matters; its effect was to retain jurisdiction of the High Courts in such proceedings under the Companies Act, 1956 that were already pending before the High Courts.[4] The issue before the Court was whether: (i) proceedings before the High Court as a result of the 1988 Amendment were included in the phrase “all proceedings” of Section 434(1)(c); and (ii) whether oppression and mismanagement cases could be brought within Section 434(1)(c) such that they would also have to be transferred to the NCLT.
The Court answered both the questions in the positive. This has led to the confusion of whether even excepted proceedings were now to be transferred as a result of this decision. That is however not the case. First, the Court’s interpretation of the words “all” and “including” were in light of the above two specific questions. Second, and more importantly, the exceptions have been accounted for, although not by the Division Bench directly, but by the single judge whose “unexceptional judgment” the Division Bench upheld. The Single Judge in his order stated: “Perhaps the only exception that has been carved out is by the Companies (Removal of Difficulties) Fourth Order, 2016…The present proceeding is not one where orders have been reserved after conclusion of hearing and thus does not come within the exception.”
This makes it amply clear that the Court was conscious of the exceptions and when stating all matters need to be transferred it did not include the exceptions. Perhaps the only reason the exceptions do not find mention in the Division Bench’s decision is because the present case did not fall under such exceptions.
Explanation: