A. MALAISAMY Vs. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner claims that he is one among the shareholders in Repatriates Cooperative Finance and Development Bank Limited [in short "REPCO Bank"] and would state that it was initially registered as a Cooperative Society on 19.11.1969 under the provisions of the Madras Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 with jurisdiction spread over the State of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Union Territory of Puducherry for the purpose of promoting the rehabilitation activities for repatriates from neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Burma. The said bank is also deemed to be registered under the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002. The petitioner would state that REPCO bank is a Government of India enterprise, comes under the administrative control of Freedom Fighters and Rehabilitation Division, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India and it is in association with State Governments of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

(2.) ACCORDING to the petitioner, REPCO Home Finance Limited (fifth respondent) is a subsidiary of REPCO Bank, as the Government of India is holding 37.37% of shares and it is the single major shareholder in the fifth respondent Company and it provides housing finance and that the Chairman, Managing Director and other Directors are appointed by the Government of India and three Officers of Indian Administrative Services (IAS) are also representing the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu in the Board of Directors of the said company.

(3.) MR . V.S. Venkatesh, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has drawn the attention of this Court to the typed set of documents and would submit that in respect of Public Sector Undertakings which comes under the control of the Government of India, the age of entry is fixed up to 60 years and therefore, prescription of age in the impugned advertisement between 55 years and 62 years, on the face of it is unsustainable. It is the further submission of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner that the term of office as per the impugned advertisement is for a tenure of 3 years extendable by another 2 years, subject to age criteria specified under Section 196 of the Companies Act, 2013, which means that a person selected as Managing Director can continue till 67 years and it is also against the norms prescribed by the Government of India for recruitment to such a post in the Public Sector Undertakings and the conditions mentioned in the advertisement are tailor -made to suit a particular individual and therefore, it is vitiated on account of malafides also and prays for a declaration, declaring the said advertisement as null and void with a further direction to re -issue the advertisement in accordance with the relevant norms fixed by the Government of India.