3 Plantation Firms Issued Notices

The Supreme Court yesterday issued notices to three plantation companies on an application moved by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) seeking the hearing of their cases in the Bombay High Court.

The high court is already hearing a case against Golden Forest India Ltd, and recently, it appointed a receiver, retired judge M L Pendse, to oversee the sale of the firm's assets. The company allegedly owes investors over Rs 1,000 crore.

Sebi moved the court of Justice M Jagannadha Rao and Justice A P Misra and pleaded that the high court may be allowed to go ahead with three more companies_Libra Plantations, Okaria Plantations and Arrow Gobal Agrotech. Some plantation companies that appeared in the court vehemently argued that no order should be passed without hearing them and "behind their backs". Therefore, the court issued notices to the three companies named by Sebi.

 

In an earlier order in the case of plantation companies, which are accused of defrauding lakhs of investors, the Supreme Court had stayed proceedings in all high courts except the Delhi and Bombay high courts. In the Bombay High Court, only the Golden Forest case was allowed to proceed, since it was in an advanced stage. The rest of the cases were transferred to the Delhi High Court for obtaining a uniform judgement. All those who wanted to argue were allowed to intervene in the Delhi High Court proceedings. Sebi now wants proceedings to continue in the Bombay High Court in the case of three more companies.