A bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana was told by Senior Counsel AM Singhvi, appearing for KBL, on Friday that the other side had benefited from mediation and repeated adjournments of hearings in the case and were involved in promotional and other activities.
“Taking advantage of mediation and adjourning the case repeatedly and the other party is doing promotional activities, advertisements and my lawsuit is suspended. The court directed her registration twice but she was not presented. They ( the other party) benefit from the duration of the mediation,” Singhvi said before the bench, which also included judges AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli.
“We will list him on March 15,” the bench said.
On February 4, the court was informed by KBL that mediation by former Supreme Court Justice Indu Malhotra to settle the Kriloskar family feud had failed.
The bench had said it would hear the case next.
Previously, the judiciary had asked the industrialist Atul Chandrakant Kirloskar and 13 others, respondents by KBL, to give their opinion on the question of mediation to settle the case.
On July 27 last year, the high court ordered a standstill in the case between the feuding family members of the Kirloskar group. This was also extended to the proceedings in the Civil Court of Pune on KBL seeking damages for breach of family deed.
Inviting the parties involved in the case to explore the possibility of mediation, the training issued an opinion on Sanjay Kirloskar’s appeal and asked them to file replies.
The Supreme Court had asked the Kirloskar brothers – Sanjay and Atul – to explore mediation to resolve the family dispute over the assets.
The dispute over the Family Settlement Deed relating to the over 130-year-old Kirloskar Group assets reached the Supreme Court after Sanjay Kirloskar appealed against the Bombay High Court order that relegated the dispute to the arbitration.
In the appeal, it was argued that the High Court’s order is factually and legally indefensible and wrong and that it contains serious errors of fact and law and that incorrect inferences were made on an incorrect basis.
Members of the Kirloskar family entered into a Family Settlement Deed (DFS) in 2009.
According to the appeal, under the DFS, disputes relating to the Kirloskar Institute for Advanced Management Studies (KIAMS) and the Kirloskar Foundation (KF) must be resolved unanimously. If there is no unanimity, the matter shall be referred to two arbitrators — Anil Alwani and CH Naniwadekar. In the event of a difference of opinion, the dispute shall be submitted to the third arbitrator, Srikrishna Inamdar.
DFS makes it clear that only disputes relating to KIAMS and KF will be submitted to arbitration and not other disputes, according to the appeal.
Another DFS clause states that no one in the family will compete with another member of the business, he added.
According to KBL, this clause was violated by Rahul and Atul who took a stake in a pump manufacturing company, namely La Gajjar Machineries Pvt Ltd.
Aggrieved, KBL had earlier filed a lawsuit in a civil court in Pune seeking damages of Rs 750 crore for breach of the agreement. While awaiting the lawsuit in the Pune court, Atul, Rahul and other respondents appealed to the Bombay High Court saying that DFS has a clause that in case of dispute, the parties can resort to arbitration. .
The high court, hearing their plea, had given their agreement and ordered a resolution by arbitration.