HUMBLE APPLICATION OF THE APPLICANTS ABOVENAMED FOR IMPLEADMENT AS ADDITIONAL RESPONDENTS 52 TO 65
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
INTERIM APPLICATION NO. ___ OF 2023
IN
CIVIL REVSION APPLICATION NO. (ST) 17199 OF 2023
Jagdish Ramdas Gujar & 13 Ors. …Applicant
/Interveners
IN THE MATTER BETWEEN
TATA SONS PVT. LTD …APPLICANT
V.S
SUNIL SHANTISARUP GUPTA & ORS. …RESPONDENTS
HUMBLE APPLICATION OF THE APPLICANTS ABOVENAMED FOR IMPLEADMENT AS ADDITIONAL RESPONDENTS 52 TO 65:
APPLICANTS ABOVE
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH:
1. The Applicant are slum dwellers who were forcefully evicted of their shanties by the authorities in compliance of the various orders of the High Court, in particular that in W.P (L) no. 3246 of 2004 (Bombay Environment Action Group (BEAG) & Anr v. State of Maharashtra, wherein this Hon’ble Court, without there being on the party array even a single slum dweller or any organization representing them, had ordered the demolition of their shanties, without providing for any alternative accommodation.
2. In pursuance of the orders of this Court in PIL no. of 1995, the homes of 4,00,000 slum dwellers who were residing on the outskirts of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park for decades, were bulldozed overnight, without being afforded any alternative accommodation. Every day, in the city of Mumbai and in the suburbs, hundreds of shanties of the poor are bulldozed. The slum dwellers are compelled to set up shanties on open vacant land belonging to the Government, and sometimes private parties, so too, on roadsides, because since independence no meaningful effort has been made to build homes for the poor, except the mostly uninhabitable structures built under the SRA scheme.
3. Shri Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata and Ratanji Tata, great philanthropists, bequeathed all their estates and even personal belongings to the TATA Trusts for providing homes for the homeless, healthcare for the poor, food for the thousands who are starving, providing education to the poor and resourceless. The estates of the late Tatas philanthropists, which constitutes the corpus of the various TATA Trusts, are in the form of shares in the various companies of the TATA group, the primary being TATA Sons Ltd.
4. The Petitioners are made to understand that the TATA Group is worth 23 lakhs crores of Rupees, an astronomical amount, the single largest entity in this country. The TATA Sons being primarily owned by the TATA Trust as the principal shareholder of the TATA Group of companies, the millions who are homeless, impoverished, sick and ailing, are the true beneficial owners of the TATA empire. The elite and powerful men who control the TATA Trusts, TATA Sons and the TATA Group of companies are the legal owners, the TATA Trust being a public charitable trust. Stated in the most temperate and modest of ways, the TATA Empire, of which the poor are the beneficial owners, are denied of the fruits of the trust. An empire worth more than 23 lakhs crores, spends on charity a pittance of a few hundreds of crores of rupees. The affairs of the TATA Trusts and TATA Sons, which is one but for the artificial, technical separation, TATA Trusts being a charitable trust and TATA Sons being a company. Taking full advantage of this legal technicality, the affairs of TATA Sons are conducted in manner totally unmindful of its purpose, namely, the welfare of the poor and impoverished. The TATA Trust and TATA Sons are hijacked by certain vested interests. In order to facilitate this fraud, the TATA Sons Ltd., a public limited company was converted into private limited company, a private affair.
5. Those at the helm of TATA Trusts and TATA Sons Ltd., are so powerful and influential that the conversion of TATA Sons Ltd to TATA Sons Pvt Ltd., a fraud of unimaginable dimensions, did not receive much public notice, much less the notice of the government. Suit no. 1886 of 2013 came to be filed in the City Civil Court to defeat the fraudulent designs of the vested interests and to prevent the estates and properties of TATA Sons, in reality TATA Trusts, being plundered. The above revision came to be filed because the City Civil Court rejected the plea of TATA Sons seeking rejection of Suit no. 1886 of 2019, challenging the conversion of TATA Sons Ltd to TATA Sons Pvt. Ltd. That a development of such monumental consequences, was not reported by anyone in the print or electronic media, is an indication of the power and influence of those at the helm of affairs of the TATAs over the media.
6. The TATA Trusts has no assets other than the shares in TATA Sons Ltd. The shareholders of the TATA Sons being the TATA Trusts and TATA Group of companies, the TATA Trusts and TATA Sons Ltd. are one and the same. This Hon’ble Court being a Court of equity is duty bound to look into the reality and see the true state of facts, piercing the corporate veil.
7. The beneficial owners of the TATA Trusts, the slum dwellers, the poor who do not have the resources for medical treatment and education, the homeless and those leading impoverished and miserable lives out of poverty, are the real victims of the conversion of TATA Sons Ltd. into TATA Sons Pvt. Ltd., which is impugned in the aforesaid suit. The Petitioners, the poor, the beneficial owners of TATA Trusts, have every right to seek impleadment as Respondent nos. 52 to 65 in the above revision and to ensure that the interests of the poor, the beneficial owners are protected.
Hence the instant application for intervention and impleadment.
FOR THE REASONS STATED HEREINABOVE AND THOSE TO BE URGED AT THE TIME OF HEARING, IT IS MOST HUMBLY PRAYED THAT THIS HON’BLE COURT MAY BE PLEASED TO:
a. To allow the Applicants above, slum dwellers, the beneficial owners of the TATA Trusts to intervene and to be impleaded as Additional Respondents. 52 to 65 in the above Civil Revision Petition for the enforcement of their rights as the beneficial, nay real owners of the TATA Trusts;
b. grant such other and further reliefs which the nature and circumstances of the case may warrant.
Place: Mumbai
Date: ___day of November, 2023.
Nedumpara &Nedumpara
Advocate for Applicants
98205 35428
