Days before the Global Investors’ Meet (GIM) in Chennai, the Madras High Court has agreed to hear on Monday a couple of writ petitions seeking to restrain the Union and State governments from conducting the summit without framing guidelines to protect foreign investors.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam accepted a request made by senior counsel S. Prabakaran, representing Singapore-based Cascade Energy Private Limited, for early hearing of the case and directed the Registry to list it for admission on Monday.
The petitioner company said it approached the court since it invested ₹33 crore in a domestic solar energy firm in 2015 and got cheated. Claiming that around 1.4 lakh foreign investors were cheated according to a study, the petitioner filed a writ petition seeking a direction for the framing of guidelines to protect foreign investors, and another to forbear the conduct of GIM 2019 in Chennai until such guidelines are framed. It also sought an interim injunction restraining the governments from allowing companies with criminal background to participate in the meet.
When the senior counsel mentioned the matter before the Division Bench, the senior judge wondered whether such summits served any purpose at all. Referring to a news report, Mr. Justice Sathyanarayanan said, “We saw some facts and figures in newspapers. Except the State of Maharashtra, the investments as promised have not come to any State. What is the use of inking deals during such meets without any real investment being made in the State?”