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Journalism of Courage
Matulya Mills told to continue to pay wages’
A division bench of Justice M B Ghodeswar and Justice S Radhakrishnan today admitted a petition filed by the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti (GKSS) against the Matulya Mills Ltd, and directed the mill to pay the workers salary from the month of June 1999 onwards, “and continue to pay the wages”. The bench also directed the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) to dispose of the various matters with it, dealing with the MML within 12 weeks.
The admission of the petition had been opposed by the counsel for the MML, Jamshed Cama who had argued that it could not be admitted since under Article 12 of the Constitution, only a petition against the state could be admitted. However, Justice Radhakrishnan observed that the petitioners, had inter alia, also made the BIFR a party to the petition since the body was responsible for monitoring the mill’s modernisation scheme.
The GKSS had filed the petition when around 700 workers with the MMLdidn’t receive wages since November 1998. The petitioners also alleged that the money that the company received by selling off land had been siphoned off and never used to modernise the mill. The MML had on its part argued that it did not have enough money to start the mill and had pleaded that the state be directed to allow it to sell some more surplus land.
A bench of Justice Ghodeswar and Justice B N Srikrishna had in July this year gone into various allegations of the petitioners and directed the IDBI, the monitoring agency to submit a report on the accounts of the mill. It was only on the specific directions of this bench and under threat of contempt that the MML only this month paid salaries to its workers till May 1999. In its report submitted recently, the IDBI had stated that various amounts from the no-lien account had been used by the company. While Cama argued that those were bonafide uses, he was agreeable to the suggestion of the IDBI that the company either go in for winding up or a changein the board of management. Since this issue is primarily for the BIFR to consider, the petition was admitted and the BIFR directed to decide within 12 weeks.
Wizcraft plea referred to appellate body
The division bench of Justice Ghodeswar and Justice Radhakrishnan today directed Wizcraft, the Entertainment Agency — which had challenged the state government’s levy of Rs 7.82 lakh entertainment tax on its programme of March 1998 — to approach the Revenue Commissioner, Konkan Bhavan with its appeal against the state’s order.
Wizcraft had been asked through a show cause notice by the state government to pay the entertainment tax on a programme hosted by Wizcraft at Andheri on March 15 last year, wherein they had held a pop show by European pop singer Whigfield. The company said the show was entirely sponsored and there was no admission fee to the show.
The petitioners argued that under the agreement with the softdrinks magnate, anyone who showed five caps of the softdrink bottle could enter theshow. “How can one levy an entertainment tax on the softdrink caps which have no value to us?” asked counsel for the petitioners. The counsel argued that the Entertainment Tax Act specifies that tax could be levied only on admission fees. “Even if one were to hold that the cost of the softdrink was Rs eight and five caps meant Rs 40, only 8,000 persons had actually attended the show, hence the revenue would be only Rs 3.2 lakh. How can we be asked to pay Rs 7.8 lakh?” he asked.
State government pleader R V Govilkar then showed the accounts furnished by the company itself, which admitted that they had obtained a sponsorship fee of Rs 14 lakh. Wizcraft however argued that this was of no concern to the state government which had to restrict itself to the gate fee.
When asked to approach the appellate body under the Act, the petitioners opposed it since under this body they would have to deposit the entire amount in dispute before the appellate authority.
