Liabilities incurred by a dissolved company under the Gujarat Closed Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Act remain solely enforceable against the original owner.

JUDGEMENT

1.The applicant was an employee of New Swadeshi Mills (in liquidation and hereinafter referred to as "the Company"), which has been dissolved.

2.According to the applicant, on 23rd January, 1984, he was wrongfully dismissed from service by the Company and, therefore, he had filed T Application No.

263/1984 in the Labour Court at Ahmedabad. The Company was closed down on 8th June, 1984 and, thereafter, with effect from 8th November, 1985 all the assets of the Company had been taken over by Gujarat State Textile Corporation Ltd. under the provisions of the Gujarat Closed Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Act, 1986 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act").

3.The case of the applicant is that the T Application, which had been filed by the applicant, was decided in his favour and yet the amount payable to him was not paid and, therefore, Application No. 203/1992 had been filed by him before the Labour Court, Ahmedabad.

The said application was granted on 7th January, 2002.

It is the case of the applicant that in pursuance of the said order dated 7th January, 2002, passed in Company Application No. 203/1992, the Opponents should be directed to pay the amount payable to the applicant.

4.In pursuance of notice issued by this Court, learned advocate Shri Nitin Mehta has appeared for respondent no. 2 whereas learned A.G.P. Shri Uday Bhatt has appeared for Opponents nos. 3 and 4. The Official Liquidator has appeared personally.

5.It has been submitted on behalf of the Opponents that by virtue of the provisions of Section 3 of the Act, all the assets of the Company had been transferred to GSTC but the liabilities of the Company had not been taken over by GSTC. They have referred to the provisions of Section 5 of the Act, which deal with the liability of the Company. Section 5 reads as under;

"5.(1) Every liability of the owner of the specified textile undertaking in respect of any period prior to the appointed day, shall be the liability of such owner and shall be enforceable against him and not against the State Government or the Corporation.

(2) For the removal of doubt, it is hereby declared that,--- (a) save as otherwise expressly provided in this Section or in any other Section of this Act, no liability, in relation to the specified textile undertaking in respect of any period prior of the appointed day, shall be enforceable against the State Government or the Corporation;

(b) no liability of the specified textile undertaking or any owner thereof for the contravention, before the appointed day, of any provisions of law for the time being in force, shall be enforceable against the State Government or the Corporation.

6.Looking to the provisions of Section 5 of the Act, it is clear that the liabilities, which the Company had incurred before 8th November, 1985, the Company was liable to discharge the same. It has been therefore submitted by the learned advocates appearing for the Opponents that neither Opponent no. 2 nor Opponent no. 3 is liable to make any payment to the applicant in pursuance of the order dated 7th January, 2002 passed in Application No. 203/1992 by the Labour Court, Ahmedabad. 7.It has been submitted by the learned advocates that the Company stood dissolved by an order dated 26th July, 1995. Even GSTC has been ordered to be wound up and winding up proceedings in respect of GSTC are pending at present. It has been further submitted that looking to the nature of liability, it is clear that the liability to make payment to the applicant was of the Company and