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(24) It was urged by Mr. Veda Vyasa, the learned counsel for the petitioners, that the Government's stand that gross assets have to be taken into account, reiterated in the return filed by respondents I to 3, is wholly untenable as the very definition in clause (w) of section 2 would show that it is the value arrived at by deducting the liabilities from the assets which should govern the case as it is done for the purposes of Income-tax Act and under the provisions of the Companies Act. The argument of the learned counsel really is what was observed by Cotton, L.J. in re : Pyle Works, 1890 (44) Chancery Division 534. Cotton, L.J. was considering in that case the meaning of the term "asset" referred to in sections 98 and 133 of the English Companies Act, 1862. In that context the learned Law Lord posed to himself a question as to what are to be considered as "assets" or "property" of the company? His opinion was that the "assets" or "property" of the company which are refered to in those sections must mean that portion of the capital which the directors have not actually dealt with before the winding-up commenced. That portion of the capital, being the property of the company, must be got in by the liquidator ; but if the legal estate, so to speak, is outstanding in a mortgage, then the only portion of that property which the liquidator can look upon as a fund in the winding-up for payment of the debts of the creditors will be the equity of redemption, or in other words, that portion of the property remaining after the satisfaction of all the obligations which the directors have properly thrown upon this part of the property of the company. Therefore, in my opinion, although the assets of the company must, under sections 98 and 133, be applied the liquidator in payment paripassu of all the creditors then unpaid, yet property which is in mortgage is not, in my opinion, "assets" of the company in the sense in which that is to be done, namely, free assets, assets which can be dealt with by the company in payment of their debts without regard to those who have a mortgage on this portion of the property of the company." Perhaps it was in the context of this view of the law under the Companies Act that the argument was advanced of behalf of the petitioners that if goods are pledged or mortgaged then only the value minus the amount of pledge or the equity of redemption would be the assets of a company. I cannot accept this contention as in the present case how the value of assets is to be arrived at is clearly given in clause (w) of section 2 and there is no justification for importing concepts of the value of assets in liquidation to arrive at the value of assets for the purposes of the Monopolies Act.