BENGALURU: In relief to Wipro’s former Chairman and Managing Director Azim Premji and his wife, the Karnataka High Court has upheld the order of the Special Court for Economic Offences, which dismissed two separate private complaints against them by Chennai-based NGO, India Awake For Transparency (IAFT). The High Court has set aside the orders passed by the 58th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court, which had restored the private complaints before the Special Court and passed the orders to proceed with the matter.
Allowing two separate petitions filed by Azim Hasham Premji, his wife Yasmeen A Premji, and Pagalthivarthi Srinivasan, Global Tax Head of Wipro Ltd, Justice Suraj Govindaraj dismissed the private complaints before the Special Court against them. Their writ petitions before the HC had sought setting aside of the order dated July 3, 2020, passed by the 58th Additional City Civil and Sessions Court in two separate criminal revision petitions.
Allowing the petitions, Justice Govindaraj set aside the orders passed by the Sessions Court in two criminal revision petitions on July 3, 2020, and confirmed the order passed by the Special Court for Economic Offences based on the private complaints filed by IAFT. The Special Court, on July 3, 2017, had dismissed the complaints against the petitioners on the grounds that the complainant was neither the Registrar of Companies nor a shareholder of the company, or authorised by the Central Government to file the complaint. Against this, the criminal revision petitions were filed by the complainant.
On hearing this, the Sessions Court had passed the order restoring the private complaints. It may be noted that the IAFT had filed a private complaint in 2017 against the petitioners before the Special Court for violation of Section 447 of the Companies Act, 2013.
It was alleged that while the petitioners were functioning as Directors of Vidya Investment and Trading Company Ltd, in the report filed by them before the Registrar of Companies, they have not chosen to give correct information. In another private complaint, the IAFT had sought to prosecute Premji and the others under Section 447 of the Companies Act for offences under Section 409 read with 120-B of the IPC.