Calcutta High Court upholds West Bengal govt's disinvestment of stake in Metro Dairy

The Calcutta High Court on Monday rejected a plea West Bengal Congress President, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, seeking probe into disinvestment of State government's stake in Metro Diary, West Bengal's leading dairy firm [Shri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury vs. State of West Bengal]..A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj said that the policy decision of the West Bengal government to sell its 47% of its stake in Metro Dairy by way of an auction to Keventer Agro Limited for ₹85 crores was neither 'illegal' nor 'arbitrary'. "Having regard to the above, 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," the Court ordered.Further, the Court clarified that the decision in respect of disinvestment and transfer of shares in Metro Dairy by the State was a policy decision based upon economic and other considerations."Such a policy decision is not open to interference unless the same is unconstitutional, violative of statutory provision, totally arbitrary or suffers from the vice of malice. Courts may also interfere if any illegality is committed in the execution of such a policy decision," the judgment said. .Metro Dairy was established in 1991 as a public-private venture. The state-run West Bengal Milk Producers Federation had 47% stake, and the remaining 53% was owned by Keventer Agro Ltd.In 2017, the West Bengal government had approved the sale of its 47% stake to Keventer in a public auction for ₹85 crore.Chowdhury filed the present plea before the High Court alleging that the government, which set up the company with public money, had suffered a loss of at least ₹500 crore by selling its stake in Metro Dairy to Keventer at a low price. He claimed there was lack of transparency in the same and, therefore, contended that a probe must be initiated into the disinvestment.The High Court said that it is not within the domain of courts to consider the relative merits of different economic policies. "It is settled that the process of disinvestment is a policy decision involving complex economic factors and it is not for the Court to examine whether the policy of a particular disinvestment was desirable or not,” the bench held.The Court further reasoned that there was no need to go beyond the policy decision and find out the reason for such a policy decision if such a decision was otherwise 'unquestionable'.The Court also called for a file related to the said decision, in order to ascertain if the decision of disinvestment was taken at an appropriate level after adhering to due procedure.After examining the same, the Court concluded that "the administrative decision was taken by following the due procedure.”Since the State had not adopted a non-transparent or opaque procedure for the sale of these shares, the Court ruled that no case was made out for interference. .Senior Advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya along with advocates Pratip Kumar Chatterjee and Chittapriya Ghosh.Senior Advocates JP Khaitan and Amitesh Banerjee along with advocate Ipsita Banerjee appeared for the State.Senior Advocates P Chidambaram and Abhrajit Mitra assisted by the team of Fox & Mandal led by Debanjan Mandal, Kunal Vajani - Of Counsel, Biswajit Kumar, Debayan Sen, Utkarsh Kulvi, and Mahima Cholera, appeared on behalf of Keventers.Interestingly, a group of Congress affiliated lawyers had last month heckled Chidambaram outside the High Court after he appeared before the Court to oppose the plea filed by Chowdhury.One lawyer had remarked that the former Finance Minister is a "stooge of Trinamool Congress"."It is just because of leadership like you that this party is suffering in West Bengal. And you are here to save the TMC looters.They have looted public money and you are saving TMC....you have become a dalal of TMC..dalali ki bhi had hoti hai...you are a dalal of Mamata Banerjee," the lawyers were heard shouting..[Read Judgment].DSK, Fox Mandal act on Mandala Capital acquisition of stake in Keventer Agro