however, subject to the condition that the provisions of the Companies Act are also attracted to the provisions of the Pondicherry Act. Although, it has been argued by Mr. Ganguli that the provisions of the Companies Act would not be attracted, we cannot overlook the amendment to the definition of “financial establishment” included in the Tamil Nadu Act and as defined in the Pondicherry Act. The definition of the expression “financial establishment” in Section 2(d) of the Pondicherry Act, which has been extracted in paragraph 14 hereinbefore, includes any person or group of individuals or a firm carrying on business of accepting deposits under any scheme or arrangement or in any other manner, but does not include a Corporation or a cooperative society owned or controlled by either the Central Government or the State Government or a banking company as defined under Section 5 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. In our view, the expression “any person” is wide enough to cover both a natural person as also a juristic person, which would also include a Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. In that view of the matter, the definition in Section 2(d) of the Pondicherry Act would also include a Company such as the Appellant Mill, which accepts deposits from investors, not as shareholders of such Company, but merely as investors for the purpose of making profit. In this regard, reference may also be made to Section 11 of the Indian Penal Code which defines a “person” to include a Company or Association or body of persons, whether incorporated or not. Accordingly, we are inclined to accept Mr. Venkataramani’s submissions that the expression “person” in the Pondicherry Act includes both incorporated as well as unincorporated companies.
