Wattant Against Rathi Udyog Md

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate M K Gupta has ordered the Aissuance of bailable warrants of Rs 10,000 each against Rathi Udyog anaging director Arun Kumar Rathi and director Anil Rathi. The warrants were ordered because summons issued earlier by the court could not be served upon them despite repeated attempts.

The ruling was given on a criminal complaint filed by Rajiv Maheshwari, a company shareholder, saying that Rathi Udyog has not disbursed the dividend of 16 per cent (amounting to Rs 67.87 lakh) declared at its annual general meeting held on December 29,1995. Under Section 205-A of the Companies Act read with Section 206, the accused company was under statutory liability to deliver the declared dividend to each of its shareholders within 42 days, that is, by February 9,1996. The Companies Act also lays down that any dividend issued by a company, if unclaimed for three years, has to be deposited by the company into an account with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). Any subsequent claim by a shareholder has to be settled with the RoC. Once declared as a dividend, the money does not belong to the company

However, the 1996-97 balance sheet of Rathi Udyog says the unpaid dividend has not been deposited with the RoC "pending reconciliation and adjustment towards calls unpaid". The balance sheet puts the unclaimed dividend at Rs 19,52,382.

The complaints add that the company has not even operated the dividend account for the dividend declared for 1995 with any bank or financial institution untfl date as per the requirements of the Company Law.

At the hearing on April 3, Rathi Udyog chairman TR Tuli appeared in court in response to the summons issued by the court and was granted bail for Rs 10,000.