Supreme Court Dismisses Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's Plea For CBI Enquiry Into Metro Dairy Disinvestment By West Bengal Govt

A Division Bench of the Supreme Court of India on Friday upheld the decision of the Calcutta High Court to not initiate a probe into the disinvestment of Metro Dairy by the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government. This petition, which travelled to the apex court in appeal, had been filed by the West Bengal Congress President and Member of Parliament, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Holding that no interference with the High Court order was warranted, the Bench comprising Justices M.R. Shah and Krishna Murari refused to entertain the special leave petition. Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared on behalf of the appellant. In June 2022, the Calcutta High Court dismissed a public interest litigation filed by Chowdhury urging the Court to direct an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the disinvestment of Metro Dairy Limited. Metro Dairy was established in 1991 as a public-private venture, with the state-run West Bengal Milk Producers Federation having 47 per cent stake, the National Dairy Development Board controlling 10 per cent of the shares, and the remaining shares vesting in a private limited company, Keventer Agro. In 2014, Keventer Agro acquired the central board's shares after its exit. In August 2017, the Government of West Bengal approved the sale of the entirety of its stake to the project's sole private partner for around Rs. 85 crores. Keventer Agro then transferred 15% of its shares to a Singapore-based firm, Mandala Capital, for around Rs. 135 crores within a matter of few weeks. This move by the Mamata Banerjee-led Bengal Cabinet was criticised by several members of the opposition parties, including the petitioner, who is the leader of the Indian National Congress in the 17th Lok Sabha and the current president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. Chowdhury also moved the Calcutta High Court, highlighting that the State Government, which had set up Metro Dairy with public money, had suffered a loss of "at least Rs. 500 crores" by selling its stakes. In his petition, Chowdhury alleged foul play and prayed for the transaction to be examined by a neutral agency on the ground that it lacked transparency. However, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj rejected the petitioner's contentions and held that the decision of the West Bengal government to conclude the transaction in the manner it did was "neither illegal nor arbitrary". On the strength of several Supreme Court rulings, the Court reiterated that what had to be seen in the exercise of judicial review of administrative action was whether the proper procedure was followed and if the reserve price was arbitrarily low and on the face of it, unacceptable. The judgement read – "We find that policy decision of the State to sell 47% shares of Respondent No. 5, MDL, was neither illegal nor arbitrary and State had also not adopted non-transparent or opaque procedure for sale of shares, hence no case for interference in the present writ petition is made out which is accordingly, dismissed." Aggrieved by this order, the petitioner approached the Supreme Court. Appellant's Contentions The appellant was represented by Senior Advocate Maninder Singh who claimed that despite the value of the 47% shares owned by the State government being as high as Rs. 533 crores, it had agreed to transfer its shares for much less. Subsequently, Singh explained, the shares were sold by Keventer Agro to the Singapore-based firm at a much higher price, raising the question of whether the State government had been propelled by bona fide motives. According to the senior counsel, the circumstances in which the transaction was conducted were also not transparent and as such, required to be investigated. This enquiry was especially needed in light of the public character of the disinvested company. He argued – "The scrutiny has to be a little higher when it is a public corporation being disinvested in this manner…It may be alright for a public individual, but not when the public companies are being sold off." On the issue of the State government's failure to follow due procedure, Singh highlighted, inter alia, that there was no publication in any newspaper, there was only one bidder, and that the bid was accepted without any recommendation by the auction committee. He urged – "The procedure was not adhered to. Recommendation is a must, there was no recommendation. Everyone has failed to consider that…Rs 533 crores is the value of the 47% shares, even though the shares were purchased by one company and sold off later. This methodology is devised in this manner so as to obviate that there is no sale of the shares of the same company. The High Court stood swayed by that, disregarding that the procedure was not followed. The procedure is mandatory, the recommendation has to come from the auction committee." ...

Supreme Court Dismisses Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's Plea For CBI Enquiry Into Metro Dairy Disinvestment By West Bengal Govt

Awstika Das

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