KOCHI: On July 12, 2018, Sree Chakra Distillery Private Limited was granted licence by the state government to compound, blend and bottle Indian Made Foreign Liquor in Thrissur district. It was one of the four companies to be granted licence to start a distillery in the state.
Now, try this for size: The Registrar of Companies (RoC) had struck Sree Chakra Distillery Private Limited off its list many months ago for non-compliance of company rules. In other words, Sree Chakra Distillery Private Limited had ceased to exist as a company when the state government granted it licence to compound, blend and bottle IMFL on July 12. Now, it is for the authorities to find out when the company was defunct. A senior partner of a major chartered accountancy firm said, “Getting struck off from the registered list under the Companies Act 2013 tantamounts to winding up of a company under the relevant provisions of the Act. Basically, it means a defunct company.”
As per records available with Express, the company status shows “strike off”. It was incorporated on December 4, 1998, with an authorised share capital of Rs 10,000. Its paid-up capital is shown in the RoC record as Rs 600. As per the documents submitted by the company for Certificate of Incorporation (No - 9 - 12647), Sree Chakra was incorporated in 1998 with six directors, with PK Kumaran, son of P K Kittu, Pulickal House, Marackar Road, Perumbavoor as the MD/whole time director of the company.
The Clause 31 of the Certificate reads “P K Kumaran shall be and is hereby appointed as the first managing director of the company for a period of five years from the date of its incorporation or until he resigns office or ceases to be director whichever event happens first. Four directors are sons of P K Kumaran — P K Pradip Kumaran, P K Sajeevu, P K Sudarshan and P K Baiju — while the fifth director is Manisha, daughter of V S Gangadharan.
It is now apparent that the excise department did not verify the basic details of Sree Chakra Distilleries before clearing it for approval by the Secretary. When asked about this anomaly, Deputy Excise Commissioner K Suresh Babu said, “The department has given only an in-principle approval to Sree Chakra and a final sanction would be given only after a thorough verification”.
The registered address of Sree Chakra Distillery — PMC X1/94, Pulickel Building, Marackar Road, Perumbavoor — has now turned out to be small shop in Perumbavoor, located quite close to the house of the managing director of the company.