The Madras HC imposes costs on bank shareholder

CHENNAI: The Madras HC has deprecated the practice of obtaining interim orders from subordinate courts to overcome high court and Supreme Court orders. It has imposed costs  of Rs 1 lakh on a person, said to be a shareholder of Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank (TNMB) and set up by another person, for approaching a subordinate court in Vellore and obtaining an interim injunction to overcome a high court order. The matter related  to transfer of shares of TNMB. 

“R.V.D.Ramaiah has abused and misused the judicial forum and obtained an interim order from the sub-court to overreach the order passed by this court, which cannot be allowed. There should be a strong message sent to persons, who try to act smart to circumvent this court’s order by approaching the lower court.

This is not the only case in which the order of the highest court of the State or even SC is sought to be overreached by approaching the subordinate judiciary. Such practice should be checked and deprecated failing which the justice delivery system would be shaken and there would not be any finality to any litigation”, said Justices V. Ramasubramanian (since transferred) and N. Kirubakaran.

Originally, there were several rounds of litigations over the transfer of shares of TNMB from subordinate courts to Supreme Court.  One P.S.P.K Maragatharaja Pandian and M. Sundaraj filed petitions against transfer of shares in 2013. Dismissing the petitions, a single judge on November 26, 2015 appointed a chairman to hold annual general meeting of the bank and conduct of election.

They preferred an appeal and they were pending without any interim order. While so, Ramaiah (set up by Maragatharaja Pandian) filed a suit in a sub-court in Vellore on the same issue and obtained an interim injunction. Challenging this order, an aggrieved party,  Sub Continental Equities Limited, filed the present petition.

 Allowing the petition, the bench erased the interim order of the Sub-Court, Vellore and struck off the suit filed by Ramaiah. It said it was also disheartening to note that the sub-judge without even verifying as to whether the suit was maintainable or not, mechanically, passed an interim order.