The Hindu : HPCL disinvestment: SC adjourns hearing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003

National

National

HPCL disinvestment: SC adjourns hearing

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI MARCH 24. The Central Government's decision to disinvest its stake in the two major oil companies, HPCL and BPCL, has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

When the writ petition filed by the Federation of All-India Petroleum Traders came up for hearing today, a Bench comprising the Chief Justice of India, V.N. Khare, and Justice S.B. Sinha adjourned the matter by four weeks after the Solicitor-General, Kirit Raval, brought to the court's notice that the petitioner had suppressed the fact that a similar petition was `dismissed as withdrawn' by the Delhi High Court.

The Bench observed that the pendency of the petition "shall not be construed as any stay of the disinvestment process of HPCL and BPCL".

When senior counsel for the petitioner, Salman Khurshid, started his arguments, Mr. Raval said the petitioner had approached the Delhi High Court but had withdrawn the petition on the ground that the apex court judgment on the BALCO disinvestment issue was against them.

He said the BALCO judgment would be squarely applicable to the present issue and the petitioners after withdrawing their plea from the High Court could not approach the apex court.

But Mr. Khurshid submitted that he had only expressed his personal view before the High Court and had tried to differentiate between BALCO and the two oil majors.

While BALCO was a government undertaking the two oil companies were private undertakings taken over by the Government.

The Bench granted four weeks time to the petitioner to clarify the position.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National