Court pulls up government for investors’ plight

NEW DELHI - Coming to the rescue of an elderly couple who were fighting for their investments, Delhi High Court has pulled up the central government for subjecting them to litigation. It also directed the government to pay back their savings, along with the cost of Rs.15,000 each.

Justice S. Muralidhar directed the Commissioner of Payments to release Kishni Devi and her husband Ganga Dutt Gupta’s savings along with the interest.

Gupta had deposited his hard earned money with Ajudhi Textiles Mills Limited (ATML) in the form of five fixed deposits of Rs.6,500, Rs.3,136, Rs.2,500, Rs.6,000 and Rs.5,000, respectively, nearly four decades ago in 1970.

“By today’s standards, these may be moderate sums but for Kishni Devi and Ganga Dutt Gupta, they constituted their entire life’s savings,” the judge said in the order passed last week, while slapping a cost of Rs.15,000 each to be paid by the government for dragging the case for so long.

In 1971, ATML was taken over by the central government and later it was nationalised under the Sick Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Act, 1974 (STUN Act) and a commissioner of payments was appointed by the government for settling the claims of creditors and depositors of ATML.

Kishni Devi and Gupta presented their claims before the commissioner but were denied the same on various grounds.

They filed appeal against the commissioner of payments but the same was rejected.

“For the second time in September 2000, the court allowed their appeals. Fortunately, this time they were not sent back to the Commissioner. The court held that the liability of the government continued since it arose after the company in question had been taken over,” the judge said in the order.

Resultantly, a decree was awarded in favour of Kishni Devi and Gupta but the government remained unmoved and refused to honour the two decrees in their favour.

They then filed two execution petitions in September 2002 in the trial court, which ruled that payments should be made to the petitioners.

Challenging the order of the trial court, the government filed a petition in the high court in 2002 and the order was stayed.

“The harsh reality is that two small investors have not been able to recover from the central government their hard-earned life savings for nearly four decades. And for absolutely no fault of theirs. And that too after successfully fighting the government in court battles twice over for three decades,” the court said.

“The government cannot hide behind a statute that permitted it to take over the company in question and wash its hands off stating that in its ordering the priorities of claims… As a principle of law, as an instrument of social and economic justice ordained by the Constitution, this is simply unacceptable,” it said.

“Today when Ganga Dutt Gupta appeared in this court, he appeared shrivelled by the long years of waiting for justice, worn out by litigation fatigue, and weighed down by the unbearable burden of a vexatious case so mercilessly imposed on him by the mighty government.

“It was a pathetic sight to behold and signified the failure of the legal system to render timely justice to the weakest among our citizenry. It is the duty of a constitutional court in a situation like this to ensure that the law is not operated to mete out injustice to a citizen,” the court said while dismissing the petition.