JUDGMENT
Krishna Saran Shrivastav, J.
1. This order shall dispose of C. A. No. 535 of 1998 for postponing the meeting of the shareholders to be held on October 23, 1998.
2. In C. A. No. 453 of 1998, it was ordered on September 17, 1998, that the meeting” of the shareholders of Asian Coffee Limited should be held on October 23, 1998, at Hotel Taj Residency, Hyderabad, at 11.30 a.m. for approving the scheme of amalgamation of the other four companies with this company. Vilas Afzul Purkar, advocate, with his consent, was appointed as the chairman for conducting the said meeting and to report on the proceedings to this court on November 9, 1998. It was directed that notice of the meeting should be published in one issue of the English daily, Decani Chronicle, and one issue of the Telugu daily, Eenadu, in all the editions.
3. On September 28, 1998, notice to all the shareholders was sent under certificate of posting from Bangalore. Notices were also published in newspapers in pursuance of the aforementioned direction. Notice was also accompanied by the scheme of amalgamation statement under Section 393 of the Companies Act, 1956, form of proxy and attendance slip.
4. It is urged on behalf of the applicant shareholder, Challa Rajendra Prasad, that he had received the notice of the meeting on October 12, 1998, and immediately thereafter he had requested the chairperson to supply to him a copy of the order dated September 17, 1998, passed by the High Court, copy of the scheme of amalgamation, memorandum and articles of association of the transferor-companies, annual accounts and reports of the transfer and transferee-companies, valuation report and reports of the ANZ Grindlays Bank Ltd., etc.
5. The main grievance of learned counsel for the applicant is that 21 days clear notice was not given to the shareholders and, therefore, the notice being invalid, the meeting ordered to be convened on October 23, 1998, should be postponed. Learned counsel for the applicant submits that though the postponement has been sought on other grounds also, for the present they are not pressed and they may be taken at the relevant time, if so advised by his client.
6. As noted above, notices were sent on September 28, 1998, under certificate of posting. On perusal of the xerox copy of the letter dated October 12, 1998, sent by the applicant to the chairperson, it reveals that notice containing the brief particulars of the amalgamation was received by the applicant only in the last week that is to say in the first week of October, 1998, because, as noted above, the letter is dated October 12, 1998, but no specific date has been mentioned regarding the receipt of the notice. This contradicts the allegation made in para; 6 of the affidavit that the notice had been received on October 12, 1998. Under these circumstances, it can be safely inferred that within two to three days from the date of posting of the notice, the applicant has received it and that appears to be the reason for not specifically mentioning the date of the actual receipt of the notice. Even otherwise, as provided in Section 53 of the Companies Act, when a document is sent by post under Clause (a) of Sub-section (2) of Section 53 of the Act, such service shall be deemed to have been effected in the case of a notice of a meeting at the expiration of 48 hours after the letter containing the same is posted and, therefore, it can be safely concluded that notice despatched on September 28, 1998, sent under certificate of posting was served on the applicant on October 1, 1998. Excluding October 23, 1998, the date on which the meeting is to be convened, it is found that 21 days clear notice has been served as required by Rule 73 of the Companies (Court) Rules, 1959.
7. For the foregoing reasons, there appears to be no force in the contention of learned counsel for the applicant that the notice received by the applicant is invalid and, therefore, on this count only, the meeting ordered to be convened on October 23, 1998, should be postponed.
8. As noted above, no other point has been pressed for decision and whatever has been urged has been answered as stated above.
9. In the result, the application is dismissed.