Ratan Lal And ORS. v. The Union Of India And ORS.

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA

[ CIRCUIT BENCH AT PORT BLAIR ] *** WPA/565/2023 Ratan Lall and others Vs The Union of India and others Mr. D.C.Kabir ... for the petitioners Mr. Maheshwal Lall ... for the respondent nos.6&7 Mr. Shatadru Chakraborty Mr. Dibesh Dwivedi ... for the Administration August 8, 2024 [SR] Item No.09 This is yet another case where unscrupulous promoters of shell companies have swindled and cheated unsuspected respondents of these islands.

The concerned companies meted out promise of paying huge returns on investment, inducing numerous people to invest in those chit fund companies. As usually happens with these dishonest promoters, the companies subsequently denied all liability. One of the companies, being the respondent no.11 herein, purchased properties in these islands. Upon getting the information that the company was taking steps to dispose of such property which the company had purchased obviously with the money collected from the investors, the present writ petitioners approached this Court for an order restraining the company from dealing with such properties.

At the stage of admission of this writ petition, an order dated March 24, 2023, was passed by a Coordinate Bench , the operative portion whereof reads as follows:

"In such facts and circumstances, I hold that without the leave of the Justice Talukdar Committee as has been appointed

by the Principal Bench in respect of the Ponzi Scheme matters, no property owned by the respondent nos. 10 and 11 be touched by them, let alone disposal or creating any interest in the said property.

I have passed this order for the interest of justice, equity and good conscience exercising my power as a constitutional Court, since in the Ponzi Scheme matters, a large number of depositors have been cheated and, considering the balance of convenience and inconvenience, I hold that if the properties of the respondent nos. 10 and 11 are disposed of, the petitioners shall not have any means to recover the money they had deposited with the above respondents, while being cheated. In spite of service and in spite of having been granted repeated opportunities, the respondent nos.10 & 11 have not appeared. Mr.

Shatadru Chakraborty, learned advocate for the Administration and Mr. Lall, appears for the respondent no.6 & 7 have both supported the case of the writ petitioners. Mr. Kabir, learned advocate representing the writ petitioners has produced a printout of a document from the website of Justice S.P.Talukdar Committee. That is a committee which is essentially a one man Commission presided over by the Hon'ble Justice S.P.Talukdar, a former Judge of the Calcutta High Court constituted by the Calcutta High Court by an order dated December 23, 2015. The relevant portion of that order is reproduced hereunder: "Therefore Hon'ble Justice Sailendra Prosad Talukdar is appointed as one man committee to deal with the matters so far as the following reference.

(i) To identify, make inventory and secure all the records of the appellant group of companies and its directors in respect of movable, immovable properties including those seized by the police including like the original sale deeds and other document like fixed deposit receipts, etc.

belonging to the above MPS Group of Companies with the assistance of machinery of the State and the Central namely State police, CBI and SEBI etc..

(ii) To ascertain the name and other particulars of depositors (other than agents) and to verify their applications to ascertain the exact amount of deposit invested by them. (iii) To dispose of all the assets movable and immovable belonging to the MPS Groups of Companies and its directors by public auction.

(iv) If moneys are payable to the MPS Group of Companies, recover the same and to credit to the corpus fund to be created for the purpose of the scheme by attaching movable and immovable properties, Bank accounts etc.. (v) After completing the process of sale and identifying the names of the investors and the amounts due to them, the committee will formulate a scheme which has to be placed before the Court for approval.

(vi) Upon such approval the committee shall disburse the amounts to the depositors (other than agents) after due identification in terms of sanctioned scheme. The committee is permitted to open Bank account in any nationalized bank for the purpose of depositing the corpus fund to be operated by the persons authorized by the committee. If any criminal case has been initiated or to be initiated at the instance of the State machinery or Union of India like CBI, SEBI or ED they are permitted to secure copies of all the necessary papers with the leave of the above committee. In the light of the above reference to be dealt with by the one man committee we direct proper arrangements and infrastructure for functioning of the committee to be completed

by the State positively by 31.01.2016 so as to one committee will start functioning from 01.02.2016."

The committee was constituted initially for one year as would appear from the aforesaid order and only in respect of a particular group of companies. Subsequently, over time, the tenure of the Committee has been extended and the scope of the Committee has also been widened. All Ponzi matters have been relegated to the Committee for being dealt with in terms of directions issued by the Court.

From the printout handed over by Mr. Kabir, I find that the Roofer Marketing Group of Companies are already before the aforesaid committee. Hence, it would be appropriate to dispose of this writ application by relegating the subject matter of the writ application to the aforesaid one man Committee and I accordingly do so. The one man committee/commission is requested to take suitable measures in the best interest of all the depositors including the writ petitioners.

The Registry shall immediately send a copy of this order along with a copy of the writ petition (with annexures) to the one man Committee presided over by the Hon'ble Justice S.P.Talukdar, as also copies of the orders passed by this Court on this writ petition. WPA/565/2023 is disposed of.

( Arijit Banerjee,J.)