Court No. - 38
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 33955 of 2012 Petitioner :- Hindustan Steel Ltd., Bhilai Steel Project P. Fund Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Vivek Saran Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Ateeq Ahmad Khan,S.K. Mishra,S.K. Srivastava
Hon'ble Ran Vijai Singh,J. Hon'ble Mukhtar Ahmad,J.
We have heard Sri Vivek Saran, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri D.K. Tiwari, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel and Sri Salim Khan, holding brief of Sri Ateeq Ahmad, learned counsel for the respondent nos.2 and 3.
By means of this writ petition prayer has been made to issue a writ or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents to pay Rs.80,52,19,451/- along with pendent lite interest to the petitioner.
It is submitted by Sri Saran that petitioner is a Central Government undertaking and the amount received from the employees towards contribution to provident fund has been invested with respondent nos. 2 and 3 for which they have issued a bond having value of Rs.68.42 crores. The bond issued by respondent nos. 2 and 3 is guaranteed by the State Government under the State Financial Corporation Act, 1951.
The submission is that in turn the amount invested with respondent nos.2 and 3 has not been returned by the respondents and now the Corporation is expressing its inability to return the amount because of financial constraint.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that in view of the fact that the bond was guaranteed by the State Government therefore State Government is under an obligation to return the amount along with the interest to the petitioner. In his submission considering this argument while entertaining the writ petition on 18.7.2012 learned counsel for the respondents were granted time to file counter affidavit pursuant thereto counter affidavit has been filed by respondent nos. 2 and 3 but no counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the State Government by learned Standing Counsel.
Considering the nature of controversy involved in this case, we are not inclined to grant any further time to the learned Standing Counsel to file counter affidavit.
We dispose of this writ petition with liberty to the petitioner to represent his case before respondent no.1. In case such application/ representation is filed along with the certified copy of the order of this Court, the Principal Secretary Finance himself or the competent authority/ committee of the State Government shall look into the matter and do the needful in accordance with law preferably within a period of six months from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order. In case authority/ committee decides to return the amount as per rule, the same may be return to the petitioner within further period of two months from the date of decision and in case decision is taken not to return the amount, reasons for the same be recorded.
Order Date :- 23.3.2018 Fhd.