Debangana Ray
Published on June 14 at 18:52 IST
On June 13, 2022, the Calcutta High Court rejected a plea filed by West Bengal Congress President, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking probe into the sale of state government’s stake in the Metro Dairy company.
The Bench comprising of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj stated that the Policy decision made by the West Bengal Government to sell its 47 percent stake in Metro Dairy to Keventers Agro Pvt Ltd. for 85 crore rupees was neither illegal nor Arbitrary.
The decision made by the state was based on economic and other considerations. The court stated that the decision is not open to interference unless it is violation of statutory provision, unconstitutional and arbitrary.
The petitioner in his petition had alleged that there was lack of transparency in the decision of disinvestment made by the West Bengal government. He stated that the company which was set up using public money had suffered a loss of at least 500 crore rupees by selling its stake to Keventers.
The Bench stated that it is not for the court to decide the desirability and merits of different economic decisions taken by the government.
“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,” it said.
Further, after examining the files related to the said policy decision, the court found that the decision “was taken by following the due procedure.”
Since the state had adopted a fair and transparent procedure while selling its stakes, the court ruled that there was no case.