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TMI Blog1959 (5) TMI 34X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... esting point of limitation of considerable importance is raised by the liquidator on this application. It is contended by the official liquidator that the claim of the Lloyds Bank is already barred by limitation. If Lloyds Bank Ltd. were to institute a suit to enforce this claim today it will undoubtedly be barred by limitation. In such circumstances, the question is can the court direct the liquidator to admit the claim. No Indian case has answered the point. The claim of the applicant bank arises out of the moneys lent and advanced to the company on overdraft account which continued till October-November, 1954. The company went into liquidation in March, 1955. The applicant Lloyds Bank did not put forward its claim before the liquidator ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e first schedule shall be dismissed, although limitation has not been set up as a defence. Explanation. A suit is instituted, in ordinary cases, when the plaint is presented to the proper officer ; in the case of a pauper, when his application for leave to sue as a pauper is made; and, in the case of a claim against a company which is being wound up by the court, when the claimant first sends in his claim to the official liquidator." It is, therefore, being contended by the liquidator that the limitation really is accelerated by the provisions contained in the statutory explanation of section 3 of the Limitation Act because the limitation starts running from the time when the claimant first sends his claim to the official liquidator. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 528 and 529 of the new Companies Act of 1956, the liquidator must be regarded as a person in whom the property of the company has become "vested in trust for the specific purpose " within the meaning of section 10 of the Limitation Act. The trusts for the specific purpose are those imposed on the liquidator by the Companies Act and, therefore, the liquidator answers the description given in section 10 of the Limitation Act. There is one Indian decision under section 3 of the Limitation Act so far as liquidation of companies is concerned. That is the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Hansraj Gupta v. Dehra Dun Mussourie Electric Tramway Co. Ltd. [1933] 3 Comp. Cas. 207 That decision is an authority for the prop ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... der and that after the order is made the statute of limitations does not run but of course a debt barred at the date of the order cannot be proved. In both these decisions as well as in the decision of In re General Rolling Stock Company 2, the point is established that specific duties and trusts are imposed upon the liquidator and the court to take care that the assets of the company shall be applied to the discharge of its liabilities in the specific manner laid down by the company statutes. Those liabilities mean all the liabilities of the company existing at the date when the winding-up order is made which gives that right. In that context it was rightly pointed out that it would be most unjust if any other construction was adopted, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hall provide for it in the order I propose to make herein. It was then contended on behalf of the applicant that no period of limitation was really prescribed for this kind of an application so that it could not come within the mischief of section 3 of the Limitation Act. If it were a suit, article 57 of the Limitation Act would have been applicable to this case and that article provides a period of three years. But then it is argued that it comes under the residuary article 181, because this is an application for which no particular period of limitation is prescribed. The difficulty of attracting that residuary article 181 is that the better opinion appears to confine that article only to applications under the Civil Procedure Code. This ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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