( 1 ) THIS is an application under Sections 153c and 153d recently inserted in the Companies Act (7 of 1913) by the amending Act (52 of 1951 ). The petitioners are two share-holders in the Amrit banaspati Company Limited, Ghaziabad, here-after described, for brevitys sake, as the company. They have made various allegations of mismanagement and foul play against the company, its Directors and Managing Agents. But it is unnecessary to go into those allegations at this stage because a preliminary objection has been taken by the learned counsel for the opposite parties and the petition fails, in my opinion, on that preliminary ground alone.

( 2 ) IT is contended on behalf of the opposite parties that the requirements of Sub-section (3) of section 153c have not been complied with. The relevant portion of this sub-section reads as follows :

" (3) No application under Sub-section (1) shall be made by any member, unless- (a) in the case of a company having a share capital, the member complaining- (i) has obtained the consent in writing of not less than one hundred in number of the members of the company or not less than one-tenth in number of the members, whichever is less, or (ii) holds not less than one-tenth of the issued share capital of the company upon which all calls and other sums due have been paid; and (b ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "

( 3 ) IT is conceded by the petitioners that they do not hold one-tenth of the issued share capital of the company and, therefore, they do not fall under Clause (ii ). They maintain that their case falls under the first part of Clause (i) inasmuch as they allege to have obtained the consent in writing of more than hundred share-holders. They do not rely on the second part of Clause (i ).

( 4 ) WHAT the petitioners did was to attach with the petition several sheets of papers which bear the signatures (together with addresses) of as many as 117 share-holders. It is to be remembered that these persons are not signatories to the petition and they are not supposed to have joined the petition as petitioners. It is the petitioners case that they have given their consent only.

( 5 ) SOMETIME afterwards the petitioners produced the consent in writing of 30 other shareholders. On the date of hearing, consent of 22 other share-holders was produced. In the cases of second and third sets of share-holders an endorsement was made at the top of each sheet to the effect that the share-holders were expressing their approval of the application filed by the petitioners in this Court. But no such endorsement is to be found in the case of 117 share-holders whose signatures were filed along with the petition. They do not write anything at the top of the sheet on which their signatures are to be found. Looking at the sheets themselves, one cannot ascertain why the signatures were affixed. The petitioners felt that there was this lacuna and to fill it up they filed an affidavit of one Jagannath who is himself a share-holder and who describes himself as the Mukhtar-i-Khas of Gobardhan Das Poddar, one of the petitioners. He has sworn in this affidavit that he, in company with one Lala Banwari Lal and "other persons" (whose names have not been disclosed), went round to various shareholders and obtained their consent to move an application in this Court. The question that arises is whether, supplemented by this affidavit, the sheets containing the signatures of 117 shareholders, contain the "consent in writing" of the said share-holders.

( 6 ) THE expression "consent in writing" obviously implies that the writing itself should indicate that the persons who have affixed their signatures have applied their minds to the question before them and have given their consent to certain action being taken. If a petitioner obtains another share-holders signature on a blank piece of paper and wishes to supplement it by an affidavit or an oral sworn statement of himself or his agent, the signature on the blan