ALCHEMIST LIMITED COMPANY Vs. STATE BANK OF SIKKIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner No. 1 is Alchemist Limited, a Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, having its registered office at village Dappar, district Patiala and having its corporate office at Chandigarh. Petitioner No. 2 - Kanwar Deep Singh is the Chairman and Managing Director of the said Company.

(2.) The petitioners have approached this Court for the issuance of a writ of certiorari for quashing the notice/order dated February 23, 2006 issued by Managing Director, State Bank of Sikkim, communicating to the petitioner-Company that the earlier decision dated February 20, 2005 issued by the State Government of Sikkim with regard to strategic partnership with petitioner-Company had been reviewed by the Board of Directors of the State Bank of Sikkim in its 149th meeting held on February 20, 2006 and the acceptance of the proposal of the petitioner- Company in principle had been withdrawn, since the said proposal had not been approved by the State Government of Sikkim. The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioners against the following respondents:-

(3.) The relevant facts, as pleaded by the petitioners, show that in the month of September, 2003, Government of Sikkim had desired to disinvest 49% of the equity capital of State Bank of Sikkim to a strategic partner with transfer of management control in the State Bank of Sikkim. In pursuance to the aforesaid offer floated by State Government of Sikkim and State Bank of Sikkim, the petitioner Company made an offer on September 27, 2003 offering itself for the aforesaid participation in the said joint venture project. Later on, an advertisement dated January 21, 2004 appeared in the newspaper "Economic Times" on behalf of the State Government of Sikkim, whereby a formal notice, inviting offer of joint venture, was published. The desirous parties, Firms, Companies having management expertise were required to apply with detailed bio-data profiles, to the Bank's Head Office at Gangtok on or before February 7, 2004. It was clearly stipulated in the aforesaid advertisement that the offers made by the parties would be subject to scrutiny by the Board of Directors and the rights to accept or reject offers, without assigning any reason thereof, were reserved by the Board of Directors. A copy of the aforesaid advertisement has been appended as Annexure P-3 with the present writ petition. It appears that the petitioner-Company formally submitted its proposal for the aforesaid strategic business partnership, through its offer dated February 3, 2004. It has been averred by the petitioners that the State Government of Sikkim received 13 offers in all from different organizations and after preliminary examination of all the aforesaid offers, the Board of Directors in its 143rd meeting short-listed the names of the two organisations, i.e., petitioner-company and one another Calcutta based company.