Synopsis: On 18th December, the Supreme Court issued a notice for the transfer to the Bombay High Court of the various petitions filed in the matter before the various High Courts.
In view of the issuance of a notice by the Supreme Court in a petition to transfer all such matters to the Bombay High Court before various High Courts, the Madras High Court Bench headed by Justice R Subbiah today adjourned various petitions filed over the LVB-DBS Bank merger.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for DBS Bank, told the Bench of Justices Subbiah and C Saravanan that the Supreme Court had issued a notice on the transfer petition on 18 December, that was returnable within ten days.
Sometime in January, the matter will come up before the Supreme Court. In view of this, the High Court of Karnataka also adjourned the case before that till 22 January.
He urged that the Madras High Court should also adjourn the matter until after the decision of the Supreme Court on the transfer petition.
There were brief arguments on behalf of the Arya Vysya Charitable and Education Foundation during today’s hearing. Advocate Selvan Babu told the Court that the bonds of the public charitable trust were completely written off under the direction of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
He urged the Court to issue an order for interim relief in order to be able to constitute a reserve fund for the holders of bonds in the same way as the shareholders were given such interim relief. It was pointed out that the Supreme Court had not held on this interim order issued for shareholder relief. The RBI or DBS bank will not be hurt by such interim relief.
However, the Court confined itself to admitting and adjourning the case by four weeks in order to await the decision of the Supreme Court on the transfer plea. Kamakshipitchai, AVR Swarnamahal Educational Trust and the Brookfields Estate Pvt Ltd. are other petitions which came before the High Court.
Apart from Rohatgi, DBS Bank for Advocates Suhrith Parthasarathy, Anuj Berry, Veena Sivaramakrishnan, Shiv Johar and Vinayak Chawla also appeared on behalf of Senior Advocate ARL Sundaresan. Advocate P Giridharan, instructed by AZB & Partners, Mumbai, appeared today for the RBI.