Debangana Ray
Published on June 14, 2022 at 15:41 IST
The Calcutta High Court while deciding on a PIL filed by Bengal Congress president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, refused CBI probe as there has been no case made out.
The petitioner in his PIL alleged that there was a lack of transparency in the West Bengal government’s sale of 47 percent stake in Metro Diary to a private company named , Keventers Agro in 2017.
Further in the same year, One company based in Singapore bought 15 percent stake in metro diary at a much higher price.
Hence, according to the petitioner, the West Bengal government had suffered a loss of more than 500 crore by selling its stake in metro diary at a very low price to Keventers.
Metro diary was established in 1991 as a public-private venture. The state-run Milk Federation owned 47 percent of the stake which it entirely sold to Keventers who already owned 43 percent stake of the company.
Therefore, there was a loss of public money with selling of the 47 percent stake at a lower price. Thus, the petitioner contended that there was a alleged scam.
The bench comprising of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj opined that the West Bengal government selling its 47 stake to Keventers at a price of 85 crore was neither illegal nor arbitrary.
Thus, there is no reason to order a CBI probe to look into the alleged Metro Dairy scam.