- (1.) This writ petition was filed in the year 1998 invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution demanding an enquiry through cbi into what was alleged to be a scam or large scale fraud indulged into by influential persons of a business family which resulted in hundreds of middle and lower class persons being deprived of their small savings for the recovery whereof they would not be able to approach the civil Courts inasmuh as if they were to have recourse to the ordinary remedy of filing civil suits for recovery, it might have taken endless time and yet they might not have got any relief as they would have been pitted against powerful persons and may be the cost of litigation would have gone much beyond the stakes involved and the relief which would ultimately have been allowed by the Courts.
(2.) Briefly stated, the case of the petitioners is like this. Olympia Gas (P) Ltd. , a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 commenced the industrial and business activity of filling and distributing of liquid petroleum gas. This and associated Cylinder Industries (P) Ltd. (respondent Nos. 9 and 10) are the subsidiaries of malkotra Troika Group. All these are owned by a single business house belonging to Ranjit Malhotra, the respondent No. 10. Attractive advertisements on large scale were inserted in newspapers which resulted in a number of small investors belonging to lower and middle class making deposits for having LPG connections. Dealers and distributors were appointed who also made the deposits with respondent Nos. 9 to 12. However, the project did not see the light of the day. The consumers, dealers and distributors all lost their deposits, each running into small sums but yielding several crores to the respondent Nos. 9 to 12.
(3.) In the writ petition, there are 8 petitioners. The petitioner No. 1 is an association formed by various consumers, dealers and distributors. Petitioner Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 are individual consumers. Petitioner Nos. 6 and 7 are distributors. Petitioner no. 8 is an association of the distributors in South India.;