The Supreme Court today declined to hear the plea of an Additional Director (Independent) in the SKS Power Generation (Chandigarh) Limited Company seeking a probe by CBI and ED into illegal activities conducted by its former management by forging entries and creating false and fake invoices to dupe the company more than 5000 crores.
The bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.M. Sundresh has directed petitioner to take appropriate remedies which may be available to him.
Advocate Meenakshi Arora, who appeared for the petitioner, submitted that in the present matter, the Delhi High Court had asked an investigation to be carried out by the Ministry of Company Affairs. “Milords, this is a power generation which had a scam of almost Rs 5000 crore, and a lot of siphoning off of funds from the company had been done. The matter came up before milords against the order of High Court and milords were pleased to issue notice in the matter. Now milord, while the SLP is pending. Respondents have filed 2 set of separate FIRs against the additional director of this new company which has invested in this particular generation, one in Mumbai and other in some Baba Beti which goes and files an FIR and I wonder where they get all the knowledge from, in a remote area in Chhattisgarh,” she said.
She argued,
“I am an additional director, who is completely a non-executive director, milords, and I am being dragged in an FIR in Mumbai, in Chhattisgarh. Milords have already seized the issue. Milords may consider when this comes up and all this be taken together.”
The Apex Court replied, “See, we entertain a particular aspect to examine and deem it proper to examine now, you want to do everything under (Article) 32, this is the problem. You go to some appropriate court and then if there is something not meritable then you move here but Article 32 petition is not.”
The counsel replied, “But milord what is happening today, one FIR filed in Mumbai, one filed by somebody in Public Interest in Varanasi, and in Chhattisgarh.”
Justice Kaul said, “I could have understood if you have come in and said look this is an FIR registered in Mumbai, this is harassment, I could have understood. Completely free legal advice right now, but this petition is not maintainable. I am telling you with this advice, of what could have been an appropriate case.”
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Counsel replied, “Absolutely milords, I understand your point.”
“Dismissed with liberty to take appropriate remedy which may be available,” record the bench in its order.
Filed by one Chandra Shekhar Paramanand Paliwal, it submitted that when the new management took over the company it found the scam and now various FIRs have been registered against him and other employees due to illegal activities conducted by former management, which illegally diverted funds of the company under various unexecuted tenders which were allotted to the companies with the sole intention to siphon off the funds.
The petitioner requested to club all FIRs registered against him in various States in view of the orders passed in the case of Arnab Goswami and prayed the Court to transfer investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation, Directorate of Enforcement and the Serious Fraud Investigation Organisation.
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The plea alleged that ex-management in collusion with the ex-employees has misused the fiduciary position entrusted upon them and cheated the present management and the society at large for than 1000s of crores. It said, the present management is unable to carry on its business and hence under great financial difficulties.
The petitioner stated that Company Board is equally represented by the Whole Time Director, Executive Director & Nominee Director of the Bank apart from Independent Director. As an Independent Director, the day-to-day business affair does not come under his purview but the different law enforcement agencies are issuing notice to him which is damaging his reputation and adversely impacting his career and health. He said, he is unnecessarily getting caught in the crossfire between the regulatory/enforcement authorities and the present company’s management.
The present plea has been filed by Advocate-on-Record Rajeev Singh and Advocates Ashutosh Srivastava & Mohd. Fuzail Khan.