The Calcutta High Court has stayed criminal proceedings against three individuals linked to the M.P. Birla group that were initiated in the aftermath of the annual general meeting of Birla Corporation Ltd late last month.

Justice Kaushik Chanda stayed for three weeks the proceedings that flowed from orders of a judicial magistrate of Alipore Court.

The case will come up after the puja vacations.

The individuals who faced criminal charges before the Alipore Court were S. K. Daga, Krishna Damani and Vinay Sureka and two officials of three wholly-owned subsidiaries of Vindhya Telelinks Ltd, a cable company of the M.P. Birla Group.

The developments over the past fortnight have added another chapter in the 17-year-long legal battle over the control of M.P. Birla group between the family of late Rajendra Singh Lodha and the Birla family members.

Harsh V. Lodha, son of late R.S. Lodha, is the chairman of M.P. Birla group. The Birlas are challenging the legitimacy of his appointment.

There is a question mark over the status of Daga, Damani and Sureka who continue to occupy key positions within the M.P. Birla group even though they appear to have fallen out with Harsh Lodha.

The Lodha camp filed the complaints against the five persons immediately after the AGM of Birla Corporation, accusing them of falsifying documents over a sustained period of time and misrepresenting themselves as directors of group entities.

At the AGM, votes were cast on behalf of these three companies that together hold over 23 per cent stake in Birla Corporation Ltd by people who, the Lodha side claimed, were not authorised to vote on behalf of the three companies.

The votes were later rejected by the poll scrutiniser.

On October 1 and 4, the lower court passed separate orders instructing the police to conduct a search and seizure operation at Birla Building, erstwhile registered address of these three companies, and the headquarters of several key Birla companies, in central Calcutta on October 5 and 6 during which documents seized.

Sureka moved the high court against the lower court orders. Senior advocate and former Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and advocate Mahesh Jethmalani represented these directors.

Staying the lower court order, Justice Chanda said in his order: “The plain reading of the complaint does not disclose ingredients of the offences under Section 405 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 since it is not the case of the complainant that the accused persons being entrusted with the relevant documents dishonestly misappropriated or converted to their own use or dishonestly used or disposed of the said documents. The allegation is of withholding the documents.”

Justice Chanda added: “I am also of the view that without receiving the search report from the police and without ascertaining the entitlement of the possession of the documents, the learned Magistrate ought not to have directed the return of the seized documents to the complainant.”

The high court judge directed the complainants/investigating agency to hand over the seized documents to the joint commissioner of crime, Calcutta Police within 48 hours from the date of his order.

The public prosecutor has been directed to produce the seized documents before the court at the next date of hearing.