Skip to main content

Money Deposited In Court Can Only Be Claimed By Litigants With The Court's Permission

In Nahar Builders Ltd Vs. Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd, application was filed by Nahar Builders for leave to withdraw the deposited amount of Rs. 8 crores furnished by the Respondent as per court order pending Arbitration. The Applicant claimed that since Arbitration proceeding has been completed and there is an Award in favour of Nahar Buidler of this amount plus interest, the Applicant should be allowed to withdraw this amount and accrued interest for partial or perhaps even complete satisfaction of Nahar Builders’ award.

The opposition from HDIL is that since there is a moratorium that has came in to play in view of the insolvency proceedings under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the amount of Rs. 8 crores deposited in this Court is ‘the property of HDIL’ within the meaning of Section 14 of the IBC. 

The High Court allowing the withdrawal held that once an amount is deposited in this Court, it is placed beyond the reach of either party without permission of the Court and no party can automatically claim any right to it without an adjudication by a Court. It is, therefore, not ‘the property’ of either party pending an adjudication as to entitlement by the Court and the provisions regarding a moratorium cannot possibly apply to such cash deposits made in this Court. Once the Arbitrator held that it was Nahar Builders that was entitled to this amount, and that award became enforceable as a decree of this court, then no question remained of the amount being claimed by HDIL. In another manner of speaking, from the time the deposit was made until the time withdrawal is ordered, that amount is not the property of either party to the dispute.


Comments

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...