Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

13. The matter came up before the Board again on October 26, 1993. At this meeting, the Managing Director emphasised the need for upgrading the Pencillin technology and reiterated his opinion that technology of G.B. is the best in the world and that H.A.L. should not forego the op- portunity of obtaining its technology. He indicated the high profits which H.A.L. would earn through such collaboration. The Managing Director also informed the Board about the discussions he had with the P.B.G. and expressed his opinion that right now the said group had no technology but that they would be able to arrange for the technology and would be getting in touch with H.A.L. by 27th November, 1993. The Managing Director further submitted that the offers of M.G.B. and others would be available by last week of November and that it is better that all these offers arc evaluated by a subcommittee of the Board. Accordingly, the Board constituted a Sub-Committee consisting of S/ Sri P.C.Rawal, N.Gopalan and Dr. P.K.Ghosh, Directors, to evaluate the proposals received.

17. By the date of the next Board meeting on April 28, 1994, the report of the Sub-Committee (which was appointed in the Board meeting dated October 26, 1993 to evaluate the proposals for upgradation of Pencillin technology) was received. It would be appropriate to briefly refer to the salient points in the report of the SubCommittee at this stage.

18. Pursuant to the directions of the Government, the Sub- Committee says, it looked into the following four issues also in addition to the evaluation of the proposals of collaboration'received from various parties. The four issues referred by the Government are:

"(i) The need for obtaining technology for upgradation of the production capacities in the Pencillin Plant and whether the technology can be obtained directly rather than going through the process of a joint venture;
(ii) Whether the technology indigenously would be adequate to achieve the objective of running HAL profitably;
(iii) In the event such a joint venture proposal as proposed by HAL management materialises, how best the interest of the employees can be protected-, and

27. After the MoU was signed on June 20, 1994, the said fact was brought to the notice of the Board of Directors at its meeting held on September 6, 1994. The Board merely "noted" the fact.

28. We are told that the Government of India has not yet approved the MoU. The respondents' counsel explained that this was because of the pendency of the writ petition in the High Court and these matters in this Court.

29. It would be noticed that there is no reference to Torrent Gujarat Biotech Limited in any of the Board Resolutions or in the Sub-Committee report. According to Torrent, they have obtained technology from Biotica of Slovakia and have set up a plant which according to them was to go into production by the end of 1994. Torrent says that it addressed a letter on April 12, 1994 to the Government of India expressing their interest in upgrading the technology of H.A.L. and in improving the production by investing Rs.40-50 crores. It is stated that their offer was rejected by H.A.L. on May 21, 1994 and that thereafter its representatives met the Minister of State on June 3, 1994 and represented their case. On June 15, 1994, it is stated, the Minister of State asked the Managing Director of H.A.L. to consider Torrent's proposal. Its grievance is that without considering its case, the Managing Director entered into MoU with M.G.B. on June 20, 1994 in an unseemly hurry.