The Madras High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by Subhiksha Trading Services Ltd, which questioned the authority of a representative of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd who had filed a winding up petition on behalf of the bank.
The appeal was filed by Subhiksha against an order passed by the High Court in December 2011, in which it said V Bhaskaran who was representing the bank did not have any authorisation to file winding up against Subhiksha, which owes Rs 40 crore to Kotak Bank.
Kotak Mahindra counsel argued that Bhaskaran, associate vice president, had been authorised to represent the bank in any court of law, consumer court or tribunal in connection with the legal proceedings initiated by or against the bank.
He was also authorised to do all such acts and deeds as may be necessary, including that of appointing advocates to appear on behalf of the bank to file or defend any suits by or against the bank and to execute all such documents.
He was authorised by the company by a board resolution and was also a principal officer of the company. Hence, the verification done by him was proper.
After hearing both the sides, the bench comprising Justice C Nagappan and Justice M Sathyanarayanan passed an order, in which they said “...this court is of the view that the conduct of the appellant-company would clearly lead to the inference that its intention is only to drag on the proceedings to suit its convenience.”
“The conduct of the appellant-company would clearly indicate that it intended to drag on the proceedings to suit its convenience and, accordingly, very belatedly, took out the present application raising objections on hyper-technical grounds,” the order said.
The bank had filed the petition saying the company had failed to repay the amounts due and payable to the bank.