Plea of "financial crunch" by Nagpur Metro persuades HC to hear its petition against 4 Banks

May 9, 2019:

As the petitioner, Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd's counsel pointed out to the High Court that as at Nagpur it is passing through "great financial crunch" it is necessary that its petition seeking the release of bank guarantees from the 4 respondent banks in the petitioner's favour should be decided at the earliest, Justice S.B Shukre and Justice Pushpa Ganediwala agreed to hear the petition for final disposal on June 10 next.

A statement was made before the court on behalf of the respondent -banks, Axis Bank, Mumbai, State Bank, Allahabad Bank and ICICI Bank (all the 3 based at Hyderabad), that their case was heard by the National Company Appellate Law Tribunal and its present view is that it would decide first the issue of jurisdiction of the NCLAT regarding grant of interim direction and that may happen on or about May 23 next.

The Court reminded that in its earlier order, it has made clear that if no decision in respect of sweep of the general stay order passed by the NCALT in the matter is taken by the Tribunal, the HC would undertake the task of interpreting the effect of that order and pass an appropriate order in this case.

Senior counsel S.K.Mishra urged on behalf of the petitioner that now enough is enough and, therefore, this petition be heard finally and disposed of on merit. The Court has stated in its order that it understands the anxiety of the petitioner and in fact, the Court also understands that the same anxiety is shared by all the parties before the Court.

But at the same time, according to the Court, there is also another dimension involved in this petition and it is regarding the crystallization of the view of the NCLAT in the matter. Of course, if the view is not crystallized by it, the HC would no longer remain under fetters and will take the call on the issue independently. Advocate Kaustubh Deogade appeared with the Senior counsel for the petitioner. Advocates V.M.Gadkari (Axis Bank),

S.N.Kumar (State Bank and Allahabad Bank), Senior Counsel Sunil Manohar with R.R Johrapurkar (ICICI Bank), Asst. SGI Ulhas Aurangabadkar ( Union of India), Anand Parchure and V Bhardwaj (16 intervenors) represented the respondents.

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