New company moves petition on Batelco vs Sivasankaran case

Aadhi Enterprises says it has signed an agreement to buy one of the properties listed in Batelco's petition

While the litigation between BMIC, a subsidiary of Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco), and business man C Sivasankaran is pending in the Madras High Court, a new company approached the court with a complaint related to one of the properties mentioned by Batelco in its petition.

The counsel for the company, Aadhi Enterprises Pvt Ltd, said it had entered into an agreement with Chennai Properties & Investments Ltd, the 16th respondent in the case filed by BMIC, to acquire Fir Haven Estate, a property in Chennai for around ~300 crore.

The counsel informed the Court that the company had already paid part of the amount and that it was ready to remit the rest to finalise the deal, which would have to be completed by next month. He argued that if the deal was not finalised within the time frame, the company would be in trouble since its investors would back out from supporting it. The court adjourned the case to next week for hearing.

BMIC had mentioned Fir Haven Estate in its petition seeking the court's direction to Sivasankaran and others not to alienate a list of assets. In its petition, BMIC alleged that Sivasankaran was the owner of Fir Haven Estate as well as another immovable property in T Nagar in Chennai.

Sivasankaran's relatives and others, who are respondents in the case, have filed their counter against BMIC's petition.

Earlier, the high court had by an order of interim injunction restrained the respondents including Sivasankaran from dealing with or alienating these assets. Batelco moved the Madras High Court to execute the decree it received from an English court for payment of money.

According to earlier reports, in 2009, BMIC bought 42.7 per cent stake in mobile services company S Tel from Sivasankaran. S Tel had been awarded a 2G licence in 2008, which was later cancelled by the Supreme Court in 2012 following the 2G scam. BMIC and Sivasankaran entered into an agreement under which the latter would buy the stake back at the same price. However, there was allegedly a breach of agreement and BMIC took Sivasankaran and others to an English court, which issued the decree totalling $212 million in June 2014 against Sivasankaran and his company.