DGC calls MCA handiwork a ‘lazy cut & paste’ job in final submissions to NCLT
NEW DELHI: As the National Company Law Tribunal reserved its order in the matter over the management dispute of the Delhi Gymkhana Club, one of the country's oldest clubs, in its final submission to the NCLT, has said that the petition from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to overhaul the club's management was motivated by complaints from a host of disgruntled members, one of whom is a high-ranking official in the MCA.
In addition, the Delhi Gymkhana Club, through advocate Gaurav Liberhan, submitted that the Regional Director's recommendation for the Centre to intervene in the club's management through a petition showed "no application of mind" and that it was a "lazy cut and paste" job.
In support of this statement, the DGC noted that the Regional Director's recommendations were made after examining the inspection report of the MCA, which was prepared only on March 3. The club contends that it would be impossible for anyone to read the 4,000-page-long inspection report (inclusive of annexures) and make recommendations within 24 hours, much less examine it in detail.
The Centre, through an urgent petition moved by MCA, had alleged "fraudulent and rampant mismanagement" by the general committee of the club, besides others, and sought to take over the management control under section 241 and 242 of the Companies Act, 2003.
The club said many disgruntled members', including Krishna Varma and others, complained against it after having lost the election. Responding to the complaint of Navrang Saini, a former high-ranking member in the MCA, the club said it is facing the heat from
MCA, after it denied him membership.
The written submissions argued that the MCA merely repeated the word "fraud" several times in its petition, yet it failed to establish fraud.
The club insisted that the MCA failed to establish what is the public interest involved and how the affairs of the company are being run prejudicial to public interest. It argued that it is a company by the members and for the members. An outsider to the company even otherwise had neither any locus nor any right to interfere in the internal management of the company.