Wasting court’s time costs Tata shareholders ₹14 lakh

Petitioners in Wadia case withdrew suit, offered no reason

A three-year-old legal tussle between the Tata Group and some of its minority shareholders in a matter related to the ouster of Nusli Wadia as an independent director has cost the shareholders ₹14 lakh. The Bombay High Court has imposed costs on the entities for wasting “substantial judicial time” after the petitioners decided to withdraw their suit without offering any reason.

Substantial costs

In an order on February 6, Justice K.R. Shriram ordered the four plaintiffs to pay a total of ₹14 lakh after the defendants, including the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, highlighted the fact that due to the suit they had to incur substantial costs in hiring senior advocates.

“The suit is today being withdrawn unconditionally without any reason being offered. Therefore, in my view, it will be only appropriate that costs are imposed on plaintiffs,” the order said.

“All the counsels present today for defendants, except counsel for defendant no. 8, in unison, state that substantial judicial time has been spent and substantial costs had been incurred by defendants and press for costs. I have seen copy of order dated 16.12.2016 and it appears that not less than 10 senior advocates have appeared for the defendants. There are other dates also when various senior advocates have appeared for defendants,” Justice Shriram said in the order.

Nusli Wadia, one of the defendants, submitted that he did not want to claim any costs. Incidentally, the matter has seen senior advocates like P Chidambaram, Shiraz Rustomjee, Janak Dwarkadas, J J Bhatt, Ravi Kadam and Fredun Devitre appear in the past on behalf of the various defendants. Of the total costs of ₹14 lakh, an amount of ₹2 lakh each will have to be paid to Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai Police Welfare Fund, Free Opthalmic Hospitals Society and The Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

This was on account of four of the defendants stating that their share of the costs should be given as “donation to any social cause.” The court has ordered for the payment to be made within six weeks.