Deccan Chronicle buys time at CLB citing court hearing

Hyderabad high court on Monday gave another opportunity to the firm's counsel when he sought to defer his final arguments

The Company Law Board (CLB)'s principal bench in New Delhi on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on the application seeking change of management at Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL) for a week after the company informed the bench that a petition regarding this matter was pending consideration of the High Court in Hyderabad.

Soon after the principal bench started the day's proceedings, the DCHL counsel said that it would be appropriate to adjourn the matter for any other convenient date as the high court was hearing the arguments in a petition related to this case, according to legal sources.  

The high court  yesterday gave further opportunity to the DCHL counsel when he sought to present his final arguments on Tuesday.

Pressing for the intervention of the High Court on the basis of territorial jurisdiction of the case, DCHL counsel DV Sitarama Murthy cited previous judgements in support of his arguments. He argued that the Delhi high court would become the jurisdiction of any order passed by the CLB taking away the jurisdiction of this court. To this, Justice Naveen Rao, who was hearing the petition, sought to know if any intervention by him would amount to taking away the jurisdiction of the CLB.

Later, the judge asked for central government's opinion on whether this court could interdict with a matter pending before the tribunal.  Justice Rao extended the time for one more day to Wednesday to hear the Centre's views even while a couple of lawyers representing other entities requested the Judge that they  would implead in the case. Informing the court of his preliminary stand, the Centre's counsel said the company could approach the court by way of an appeal if they are aggrieved by the orders that  would be passed by the CLB.

It may be recalled that the central government agencies had filed an application before the CLB, New Delhi under section 388-B of the Companies Act in September, 2014 for change of DCHL management alleging the irregularities of the present board in running the company affairs.