Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 69

THE JOURNEY 63
a situation which could hurt the Directors of the company and decided to quit as President and Director of the company. I informed the Banks about my decision. Years later, I read in the newspapers that the labour at Shree Ram Mills Limited had filed a case against the company. But I could not get hold of a copy of the charges filed. The latest Annual Report and Balance Sheet available were three years old. The company had hiked the share capital without our knowledge. Through manipulations our shareholding in the company had been whittled down from ten percent to two percent. Perhaps we erred in our deal with them. It should have been on a different footing altogether. Those days we did not realise the potential value of developing the 72 acres of freehold land in the possession of SRM. At the time of the sale, mill lands were not considered valuable.
S. Kumar's were selling the land belonging to Shree Ram Mills and I found that the declaration regarding the value of the land held by three agreements as reported to the BIFR (Bureau of Industrial Financial Reconstruction) was not in consonance with the agreements that had been actually entered into. Therefore, I consulted ace counsel Fali Nariman on what was to be done in the matter. He said since our share holding had been whittled down to two percent, we could not file a case in the High Court. Instead, if we wrote to the BIFR pointing out this deficiency, he said, S. Kumar's might come on table for negotiation. I asked Nariman to draft a suitable letter and we sent it to AAIFR (Appellate Authority of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) to whom the case had been transferred by BIFR. After a few weeks I got a reply from the AlFR to make the State Government, the banks, the financial institutions and the Municipal Corporation, which had all given concessions to Shree Ram Mills, as parties to my appeal. When S. Kumar's heard about this they were naturally afraid of the consequences and asked Mr. Amin of the firm Dalal & Shah, the auditors of SRM, to intervene and negotiate for the purchase of our shares. After three months of negotiations we agreed on the price for the balance shares we were holding and closed the matter. I did not want any further legal action which might hurt S. Kumar's. At this time Abhay Kumar Kasliwal was president of FICCI.
Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice -
Arcesilaus