- (1.) These two appeals are directed against the order of learned Single Judge in W.P. No. 4059 of 2015. In the Writ petition, investors of the appellant company approached learned Single Judge contending that the money invested by them in the appellant companies though became payable, till date are not paid and they sought several directions. On 30.3.2015 a direction was given to the Director General of Police, West Bengal, Calcutta and the Commissioner of Police Bidhan Nagar Police Commissionarate, Calcutta, the respondent Nos. 8 and 11 to seal the offices of the appellant groups of Companies at 16, Lake town, Calcutta and Jhargram West Midnapur as mentioned in the writ petition.
(2.) Aggrieved by the same, these two appeals came to be filed. As already indicated, the main complaint of the writ petitioners was that in spite of amounts becoming payable and over-due, the appellant companies were evading payments and thereby huge amounts invested by them were siphoned off During the course of hearing when the appeals were taken up, several suggestions came across the Bar on behalf of different parties including the investors and also State Government agencies and Central Government like SEBI, CBI apart from the counsel for the appellant companies. The Superintendent of Police along with CBI, SEBI persons were allowed to enter the premises at relevant point of time with the direction of the Court to secure certain materials and information from computers with regard to the properties of the appellant companies in order to find out a solution for future course of action.
(3.) Subsequently, several Public Interest litigation in respect of other chit fund companies and allied groups were filed and as a matter of fact the number is more than 100. This indicates the extent of ramification in the circulation of money collected from general public by different companies in the name of money circulation schemes. So far as other statutory remedies, the concerned authorities are taking action so far as other companies some attempt was made by the appellant group of Companies to bring a financier to purchase assets and to take over the liabilities of the appellant companies. When the Court enquired into the bona fides and genuineness of the financier, the so called financier did not turn up to give his proposal to solve the problem of the investors. Under these circumstances we felt if Court takes up these matters for implementation of a mechanism for repayment to investors, the other work of the Court would be hampered, hence we sought suggestions from all the parties and ultimately opined that if a separate committee is constituted for implementing a process to create a corpus by selling properties, both the movable and immovable, of the appellant companies by public auction and frame a proper scheme for paying the amounts due to investors, it would not only give relief to the investors but save lot of judicial hours. In that context, we called for the opinion of the State. The State came forward and filed an affidavit on behalf of the State Government through one Nirmalya Ghoshal son of late Sital Prasad Ghosal Special Secretary in the Home Department Government of West Bengal. When the name of the person to head the committee to be constituted was suggested as Justice Sailendra Prosad Talukdar former Judge of this Court, all parties to the above litigation readily agreed.;