Centre's disinvestment policy has received a major boost with Calcutta High Court allowing the sale of majority stake in the ailing public sector unit Jessop and Co to Ruia Cotex Ltd.A division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice A.K. Mathur and Justice A.K. Banerjee allowed the appeal filed by the Union of India and others challenging an earlier order by a single bench nullifying the sale of the Kolkata-based public sector unit.Setting aside the March 28, 2003 order of Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta, the bench observed that the findings of the trial court with regard to lack of transparency in decision making process in the disinvestment of Jessop cannot be sustained.Apart from the Centre, Ruia Cotex and Bharat Bhari Udyog Nigam Ltd, the parent company of Jessop, also challenged the earlier court order.The bench also dismissed a writ petition by the Jessop and Co staff association challenging the earlier order in which the court had refused to consider Jessop as part of strategic sector. They argued that being a railway wagons manufacturing company Jessop is part of the strategic sector and therefore it could not be handed over to a private party. As part of its disinvestment policy, the Centre had in February 2002 approved the Rs 18.18 crore bid of Ruia Cotex for the sale of 72 per cent stake in Jessop, which had gone to BIFR after becoming sick.The decision was strongly criticised by the Left trade unions in West Bengal and the Jessop employees challenged it in the Calcutta High Court to get an initial reprieve.
