JUDGMENT :

ASHUTOSH J. SHASTRI, J.

1. By way of this Letters Patent Appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent, appellant- original applicant has challenged the legality and validity of the order passed by learned Single Judge in Civil Application No. 2 of 2022 in Special Civil Application No. 14430 of 2021 dated 6.7.2022.

2. Background of facts which has led to filing of this appeal is that applicant- original petitioner was facing an investigation into affairs of Gujarat NRE Coke Limited (GNCL) pursuant to an order dated 28.12.2018 passed by Deputy Director, Ministry of Company Affairs in view of Section 212(2)(c) of the Companies Act, 2013. In response to that, on 15.3.2019, respondent informed the Liquidator of GNCL that it had been directed by the Central Government to investigate into the affairs of GNCL under Section 212(1)(a) of the Companies Act, 2013. Subsequently, respondent through correspondence solicited information from Liquidator which was duly and promptly sent by Compliance Officer of GNCL and according to the appellant, all information regarding GNCL was provided by Liquidator. According to appellant, he has fully cooperated with the said process by sending information documents and relevant records which were within his control. Appellant has stated that with a view to ensure that investigation can be completed in a timely manner, he supplied annual reports, books of accounts, balance-sheets, etc., as stated in paragraph 2.4.

3. It has been further submitted that SFIO Team consisting of Officers mentioned in paragraph 2.5 also visited the premises of the company at 22 Camac Street, Kolkata from 26th to 28th August 2009 and also from back-up of office by taking out Fact Server and hard-disks of laptops of various key employees having data volume of around 3 Trillion Bytes using their own Gazettes. Further, on 30.9.2019, Kolkata office of SFIO was handed 1 Trillion Byte External Hard Disc containing e-mail backups of all employees having data size of 816 GB.

4. It is further the case of the appellant that in an around August 2019, SFIO summed one Mr. Pawan Kumar Agrawal (the then Chief Commercial Officer of GNCL), Mr. P.R. Kannan (former Chief Financial Officer of GNCL being engaged in different roles from 2004 to 2015), Mr. Sajjan Kumar Taylor and Mr. Bishwanath Agarwal both ex-employees of GNCL who also left the company prior to 10 years were also summoned and they all traveled to New Delhi and met to SFIO officials and responded to all questions and queries raised by them. Later on, further information was also sought from GNCL on 11.11.2019 and this requisite material which was sent was also arranged by present appellant. But, according to appellant, despite all this, summons came to be issued on 20.11.2019, asking the appellant to remain personally present at New Delhi office on 26.11.2019, which was promptly attended. Presence of the appellant was also recorded and after recording his statement, was again asked to appear on 4.12.2019 and later on, for new further dates, which without any demur responded to by the appellants.

5. It is the grievance of the appellant that despite all this cooperation having been extended and material having been supplied, respondent authority again sought further information, vide letter dated 25.6.2020. But, on account of lock-down due to Covid-19 crisis, appellant could not appear in person. It is the case of the appellant that during the course of investigation by SFIO, all information large in number was provided, even detailed statements of all key managerial personnel were also recorded, but still harassment continued. So much so that Gujarat NRC Coke Ltd. was subjected to thorough multiple forensic audits, monthly current audits, but during these audits also, no discrepancy or any incident of fraud came to be pointed out. Even though accounts of GNCL have been labeled as NPA since 2013 by consortium of more than 15 banks, none of the banks have ever found any incident o