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Judgment
Heard the parties on the prayer for an interim relief made on behalf of petitioner.
It is not in dispute that petitioner, a private limited company, had earlier approached this Tribunal through B. P. No. 651 of 2020 and withdrew the
same on 11.12.2020 because the parties had arrived at a settlement. The respondent, as a broadcaster, agreed to enter into an Interconnect
Agreement as per request of the petitioner first made on 5.8.2020 but subsequently it asked the petitioner to own and undertake to pay
approximately Rs. 12 lakhs which the respondent claimed to be outstanding against another firm M/s. Rewari Entertainment. The respondent'sÂ
stand is that M/s. Rewari Entertainment was/is owned by one Mr. Ram Avtar Yadav who has established the present company as well and,
therefore, respondent should not be compelled to supply signals of its channel to a defaulter who has only changed hats.
Such stand of the respondent, as noted above, has been denied in total by the petitioner through a rejoinder filed on 10.2.2021. Four annexures
containing several documents including communications from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting dated 13.8.2020 and 23.12.2020,
(Annexure 'C' and 'D' respectively) have been brought on record with the rejoinder in support of petitioner's stand that no doubt petitioner company
was initially set up by Mr. Ram Avtar Yadav and one Mr. Tejpal Singh Sejwal but the present shareholders Mrs. Shahana and Mr. Gaurav Mehara
have independent existence and they are the present Directors after they got a share purchase agreement in their favour on 16.7.2020 and on
payment of a valuable consideration of Rs. 2,50,000.00 which is supported by bank transactions. Thereafter, they made a request for supply
of signals to the respondent on 5.8.2020. According to petitioner, the process of inducting the present shareholders as Directors and then removing
the earlier shareholders from the post of Director required correspondences with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It took sometime and
ultimately, the resignation of Mr. Ram Avtar Yadav was accepted by the Board of the petitioner company on 24.12.2020.Â
From the submissions made on behalf of respondent, it appears that they have still some doubt that petitioner is owned and controlled by Mr. Ram
Avtar Yadav, a defaulter but there is no material on record to substantiate such apprehension. Unless the respondent are able to show that all the
documents with the rejoinder are sham, fraudulent, and created by deceit to play a fraud upon this Tribunal, it will be difficult to dis-believe the
petitioner's stand. Hence, the only issue in the way of the petitioner is decided in its favour. As the facts stand on record today, petitioner can not
be asked to clear the dues of Rewari Entertainment or its proprietor Mr. Ram Avtar Yadav and on that account, petitioner can not be denied the right
to receive signals from the respondent in accordance with the agreement and law.Â
Since no substantive issue remains to be decided in this petition, the petition itself is disposed of with a direction to the respondent to complete the
necessary formalities urgently and grant the signals of its channels to the petitioner in terms of the interconnect agreement forthwith and in any case
within one week from today.
The proof of fraud is generally not easy to gather and much less when it is at corporate level and the owners are hiding under cloak. Since the
respondent has apprehension that Mr. Ram Avtar Yadav is playing fraud through the petitioner ; it is clarified that if in near future the respondent is
able to collect materials and evidence to allege and establish such a fraud, it would be at liberty to follow this matter through any appropriate
proceeding in accordance with law.
The petition is disposed of alongwith pending MA(s), if any.