Chinnappa Reddy, J. - (1.) Problems of high finance and broad fiscal policy which truly are not and cannot be the province of the court for the very simple reason that we lack the necessary expertise and, which, in any case, are none of our business are sought to be transformed into questions involving broad legal principles in order to make them the concern of the Court. Similarly what may be called the 'political' processes of 'corporate democracy' are sought to be subjected to investigation by us by invoking the principle of the Rule of Law, with emphasis on the rule against arbitrary State action. An expose of the facts of the present case will reveal how much legal ingenuity may achieve by way of persuading courts, ingenuously, to treat the variegated problems of the world of finance, as litigable public-right-questions. Courts of justice are well-tuned to distress signals against arbitrary action. So corporate giants do not hesitate to rush to us with cries for justice. The court room becomes their battle ground and corporate battles are fought under the attractive banners of justice, fair-play and the public interest. We do not deny the right of corporate giants to seek our aid as well as any Lilliputian farm labourer or pavement dweller though we certainly would prefer to devote more of our time and attention to the latter. We recognise that out of the dust of the battles of giants occasionally emerge some new principles, worth the while. That is how the law has been progressing until recently. But not so now. Public interest litigation and public assisted litigation are today taking over many unexplored fields and the dumb are finding their voice.
(2.) In the case before us, as if to befit the might of the financial giants involved, innumerable documents were filed in the High Court, a truly mountainous record was built up running to several thousand pages and more have been added in this Court. Indeed, and there was no way out, we also had the advantage of listening to learned and long drawn-out, intelligent and often ingenious arguments, advanced and dutifully heard by us. In the name of justice, we paid due homage to the causes of the high and mighty by devoting precious time to them, reduced, as we were, at times to the position of helpless spectators. Such is the nature of our judicial process that we do this with the knowledge that more worthy causes of lesser men who have been long waiting in the queue have been blocked thereby and the queue has consequently lengthened. Perhaps the time is ripe for imposing a time-limit on the length of submissions and page-limit on the length of judgments. The time is probably ripe for insistence on brief written submissions backed by short and time-bound oral submissions. The time is certainly ripe for brief and modest arguments and concise and chaste judgments. In this very case we heard arguments for 28 days and our judgment runs to 181 pages and both could have been much shortened. We hope that we are not hoping in vain that the vicious circle will soon break and that this will be the last of such mammoth cases. We are doing our best to disentangle the system from a situation into which it has been forced over the years by the existing procedures. There is now a public realisation of the growing weight of the judicial burden. The co-operation of the bar too is forthcoming though in slow measure. Drastic solutions are necessary. We will find them and we do hope to achieve results sooner than expected. So much for sanctimonious sermonising and now back to our case.
(3.) We do not for a moment doubt that this is a case which requires our scrutiny, more particularly so because of a most singular and remarkable feature of the case namely the absence of the principal dramatis personnae from the stage. Mr. Swaraj Paul, the hero of the drama, did not appear before the High Court and did not appear before us; nor did his broker and his power of attorney holder, Raja Ram Bhasin and Co. Though the investments made and in question run into several crores of rupees, they have acted as if they care a tuppence for them. Obviously, Mr. Swaraj Paul, a Foreign National, does not want to submit himself to the jurisdiction of Indian Courts and his broker Raja Ram Bhasin and Co. has nothing to lose by keeping away from the Court and perhaps everything to gain by standing by the side of his principal. These may be excellent reasons for them for not choosing to appear before us, but their non-appearance and abstemious silence in court have certainly complicated the case and embarrassed the Government of India, the Reserve Bank of India and the Life Insurance Corporation of India to whose lot it fell to defend the case since it was their policies, decisions and actions that were assailed. We must however express our strong condemnation of the conduct and tactics employed by Swaraj Paul and Raja Ram Bhasin which we consider deplorable. The Punjab National Bank, the designated bank of Mr. Swaraj Paul's companies did appear before us but their appearance was of no assistance to the Court. They had put themselves in such a hopeless situation. It was apparent to us from the beginning that if there was much frontline battle strategy, there was considerably more back stage 'diplomatic' manoeuvering,. as may be expected when financial giants clash, though we are afraid neither giant was greatly concerned for justice or the public interest. For both of them the court room was just another arena for their war, except that one of the giants carefully kept himself at the back behind a screen as it were. One was reminded of the Mahabharta War where Arjuna kept Shikhandi in front of him while fighting Bhishma, not that neither of the warriors in this case can be compared with Bhishma or Arjuna nor can the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India be downgraded as Sikhandies. But the case does raise some questions which do concern the public interest and we are greatly concerned for the public interest and the administration of administrative justice in the public interest. It is from that angle alone that we propose to examine the several questions arising in the case.;