Sujana's Hestia Holdings Ltd special leave petition dismissed by Supreme Court

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a special leave petition moved by Hestia Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Sujana Universal Industries Ltd, against an order of the Hyderabad High Court over the recovery of a Rs 106-crore loan taken from Mauritius Commercial Bank.

A single judge of the Hyderabad High Court had upheld an earlier order of a trial court in the city for execution of a decree passed in favour of the Mauritius bank to recover the loan from Hestia Holdings.

The Mauritius bank had moved an execution petition before the Hyderabad city civil court based on a decree by a court in the United Kingdom, claiming that Sujana Universal Industries Ltd stood guarantor for the loan availed by its Mauritius-based subsidiary Hestia Holdings and has to repay Rs 106 crore.

The civil court allowed the execution petition. Sujana Industries in which Union minister Y.S. Chowdary is a non-executive director, and Hestia Holdings Ltd moved the High Court contending that a foreign decree is not executable in India. A single judge of the High Court upheld the order of the civil court that allow the execution of the UK court decree.

UK decree in line with Indian law
According to Mauritius Commercial Bank counsel Sanjeev Kumar, a two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman concurred the directions of the High Court.

He said that the bench had upheld the findings of the single judge that the judgement and decree of the UK court were in accordance with the Civil Procedure Rules, 1998 of the UK, It cannot be said that it is not a judgement on merits so as to claim exclusion from execution under Section 13(b) of the Indian Civil Procedure Code.