ORDER
K.K. Balu, Member
1. The debenture-holder in M/s. Best & Crompton Engineering Limited (“the Company”) has made this application under Section 117C of the Companies Act, 1956 (“the Act”) submitting that the Company has failed to redeem the debentures aggregating Rs. 5,500/- together with interest. The application came up for hearing and disposal before this Bench on 29.08.2003, 30.09.2003 and finally on 28.10.2003.
2. During the hearing, Shri K. Kuppuswamy, Dy. General Manager -Secretarial appeared for the Respondent Company and submitted that the Company had issued 15% Secured Redeemable Non-Convertible Debentures – (IV Series) which were scheduled to be redeemed in three equal annual instalments on expiry of 7th, 8th and 9th years from the date of allotment. The applicant was allotted 55 Debentures at Rs. 100/- each when he was minor, represented by his father and natural guardian Shri Alok Toshniwal. However, during the years 1993 to 1998 the Company was before the Hon’ble High Court of Madras and in the year 1996 the Official Liquidator was appointed as the Provisional Liquidator and an Administrator was appointed to take charge of the affairs of the Company. Since an Indonesian Industrial House had evinced interest in taking over the Company and settling the dues of all the creditors, deposit and debenture holders, the Company had on 15th November, 1997 and 6th February, 1998 issued two letters/circulars to all the unclaimed debenture holders to surrender the debenture certificates to effect payment. There was no response from the applicant. Pursuant to the Department of Company Affairs, Notification No. GSR745(E), dated 1.10.2001, the Company once again vide its letter dated 30th July, 2002 requested all the unclaimed debenture holders to surrender their Certificates on or before 31.8.2002 to effect payment. For this letter also the applicant had not responded. The Company had, therefore, remitted the entire unclaimed redemption amount of debentures to the Investor Education and Protection Fund as specified by Section 205C of the Act vide Challan No. 317/2002-2003 dated 12.9.2002. However, on 7th May 2003, the applicant had written to the Company requesting for transfer of the debentures to his name. The Company had communicated to the applicant that, as all the unclaimed redemption proceeds of debentures had been deposited into the Investor Education and Protection Fund, the Department of Company Affairs may be approached for further action on the same. The applicant now requested the Bench to issue orders authorizing payment of the amount due to him from the Fund.
3. Taking into account the facts and circumstances of the case, the question arises for my consideration is whether Company Law Board can order repayment of redemption amount from the Investor Education and Protection Fund. By virtue of Section 205C(2) of the Act, the Investor Education and Protection Fund was established with effect from 31.10.1998 and matured debentures with Companies shall be credited to such fund, if such amounts have remained unclaimed and unpaid for a period of seven years from the date they became due for payment. The explanation to Sub-section (2) of Section 205C clearly provides that no claim shall Be against the Fund or the Company in respect of individual amounts which were unclaimed and unpaid for a period of seven years from the dates that they first became due for payment and no payment shall be made in respect of any such claims. In the instant case, the debentures were due for redemption in the years 1993, 1994 and 1995 and a period of seven years had elapsed on 27.3.2000, 27.3.2001 and 27.3.2002 respectively. It is observed that the Company has taken ample steps to intimate the applicant to surrender the debenture certificates to effect payment in his favour as borne out by the correspondence on record (Pages 3&4 of Company reply & Annexure I of Affidavit). Since there was no response from the applicant, the Company was constrained to deposit the unclaimed debenture amount to the Investor Education and Protection Fund. As no claim shall lie against the Investor Education and Protection Fund no order for directing repayment from the Investor Education and Protection Fund can be made by this Bench. Therefore, the application is dismissed. No order as to costs.