Gujarat High Court
Ashish Construction & 4 vs Union Of India & on 8 May, 2014
Bench: Bhaskar Bhattacharya, J.B.Pardiwala
C/SCA/2241/2014 JUDGMENT
IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 2241 of 2014
FOR APPROVAL AND SIGNATURE:
HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA
and
HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE J.B.PARDIWALA
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1 Whether Reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see No
the judgment ?
2 To be referred to the Reporter or not ? No
3 Whether their Lordships wish to see the fair copy of the No
judgment ?
4 Whether this case involves a substantial question of law as No
to the interpretation of the Constitution of India, 1950 or any
order made thereunder ?
5 Whether it is to be circulated to the civil judge ? No
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ASHISH CONSTRUCTION & 4....Petitioner(s)
Versus
UNION OF INDIA & 1....Respondent(s)
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Appearance:
MR SHAKTI S JADEJA, ADVOCATE for the Petitioner(s) No. 1 - 5
MR SP MAJMUDAR, ADVOCATE for the Petitioner(s) No. 1 - 5
MR AS ASTHAVADI, ADVOCATE for the Respondent(s) No. 2
MR YB PANDIT, ADVOCATE for the Respondent(s) No. 2
NOTICE UNSERVED for the Respondent(s) No. 1
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C/SCA/2241/2014 JUDGMENT
CORAM: HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR.
BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA
and
HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE J.B.PARDIWALA
Date : 08/05/2014
ORAL JUDGMENT
(PER : HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA) By filing this Special Civil Application, the petitioners have prayed for declaring section 2(1)(o) of the Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, [the Securitisation Act, hereafter] as ultra vires the Constitution of India. The petitioners have also prayed for declaring paragraph 2.1 of the RBI guidelines known as Income Recognition and Prudential Norms as ultra vires the Constitution of India and the Securitisation Act.
By our common CAV judgment dated 24th April 2014 passed in Special Civil Application No. 14908 of 2012 and analogous matters, we have disposed of 79 writ-applications raising similar challenge by partly allowing the writ-applications by holding that paragraph 2.1 of the RBI Guidelines is intra vires Article 14 of the Constitution of India and, at the same time, holding that the amended provisions of section 2(1)(o) of the Securitisation Act are ultra vires the Article 14 of the Constitution and the object of the Securitisation Act itself and consequently, we restored the provisions which existed earlier, i.e. prior to the amendment of 2004 and existed at the time of decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Mardia Chemicals Ltd. v. Union of India reported in AIR 2004 SC 2371.
Page 2 of 3C/SCA/2241/2014 JUDGMENT For the selfsame reasons and grounds recorded in our common CAV judgment dated 24th April 2014 passed in Special Civil Application No. 14908 of 2012 and analogous matters, we partly allow this writ-application by holding that the amended provisions of section 2(1)(o) of the Securitisation Act are ultra vires the Article 14 of the Constitution and the object of the Securitisation Act itself and consequently, we restore the provisions which existed earlier, i.e. prior to the amendment of 2004. We, however, hold that paragraph 2.1 of the RBI Guidelines is intra vires Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
We make it clear that we have restricted our scrutiny only to the aforesaid two questions and we have not gone into the other questions involved in this writ-application.
This writ-application is partly allowed accordingly. No costs.
(BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA, CJ.) (J.B.PARDIWALA, J.) zgs Page 3 of 3