Kolkata, June 22
A petition was filed today at the Calcutta High Court on behalf of Tata Motors, challenging the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, as “illegal and unconstitutional”.

It was demanded that the court should immediately pass an interim order, declaring the “government’s forcible repossession of 997.17 acres of land at Singur as ultra vires.” The court also should appoint a special officer as receiver at Singur land till the legal dispute was settled.

But, the high court rejected the Tata Motors’ plea, including passing of an interim order. Instead, Tata Motors has been asked to submit copies of their petitions to the Advocate-General Anindya Mitra and the government’s lawyers Ashoke Banerjee and Kalpyan Banrjee, a TMC MP.

The court also turned down the demand for appointing any special officer. The hearing today was incomplete and it would again begin tomorrow at 2 p.m.

Reacting to Tata Motors’ decision of going to the court against the government, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the land was now under the possession of the government and there would be no problem in fulfilling their commitment of returning 400 acres of Singur land to the unwilling farmers.

“Any body can go to the court but it will not affect the implementation of the Act passed unanimously in the Assembly and endorsed by the President,” she remarked.

Appearing on behalf of Tata Motors, advocate Samaraditya Pal alleged that last evening by misuing the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, the police and the district officers had forcibly acquired Tata Motors’ land (997.17 acres) at Singur, where the Tatas even after spending several hundred crores could not run the Nano car project due to the resistances and prolonged agitations by the Opposition political parties, now in power in the state.

The land was sold to Tata Motors by the WBIDC for setting up Nano car factory on some specific terms and conditions. But as the Singur Bill was enacted with the presidential assent on June 20, the government officials and the police suddenly entered the factory premises and captured the possession of the area without giving any opportunity to the Tata Motors and 54 other vendors for taking out their belongings and other valuables from the factory premises.

But, advocates Ashoke Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee, who appeared on behalf of the state government and the WBIDC, respectively, denied there was any forcible entry into the Singur land.

They said with the passing of the Singur Land Bill, the 997.17 acres of land that had been forcibly acquired from the farmers and leased out to Tata Motors, now had been vested with the government. The Tatas no longer could have any legal claims over the land, which was idle and unutilised for over four years.

Kalyan Banerjee said they would return 400 acres to the unwilling farmers and keep the remaining some 600 acres for industrial purposes as decided by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He felt after the Tatas’ decision of taking the matter to the court there would be hardly any scope for negotiation between the Chief Minister and Ratan Tata on the compensation.

New Delhi, June 22
With the recent drubbing of some shares having significant promoter holding pledged, a study shows that promoters have pledged shares in about 782 companies in India.

According to a study by SMC Global Securities, the total value of shares pledged by the promoters in all these companies put together is about Rs 1.53 lakh crore.

In terms of shares pledged as percentage of total promoter shares, there are around 44 companies whose promoters have pledged between 90 to 100 per cent of the promoter holding.

This includes Tata Coffee, Gujarat Pipavav Port, Pipavav Shipyard, Ansal Properties, Koutons Retail, Euro Ceramics, Andhra Cements, Gayatri Projects among others.

There are around 169 companies whose promoters have pledged between 50 to 90 per cent of the promoter holding. This list includes companies such as Gati, Gujarat NRE Coke, United Spirits, Wockhardt, among others.

Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of research, SMC Global Securities points out that the promoter pledge aspect becomes very important especially in companies with smaller market capitalisation and substantial promoter pledging. This is because in the cases of cash crunch scenarios there is a big risk of margin calls on these companies by the financiers.

The study points out that every promoter pledge cannot be painted with the same brush. It says that there is a need for a regulatory requirement wherein the companies should disclose the names and nature of the lenders.

It is also important to bring in a regulation requiring the disclosure regarding the purpose of usage of funds borrowed by pledging the shares. In terms of value of shares pledged, the list is topped by TCS with about Rs 22,447 crore worth of shares pledged and the list includes Adani Power, Hero Honda, Tata Motors, JP Power Ventures, Asian Paints, Tata Power, Jaypee Infratec, United Spirits, Suzlon Energy, Unitech among others.

Mumbai, June 22
Market regulator SEBI is likely to make it mandatory for mutual fund players to declare their assets under management (AUM) and details of new schemes to ensure that retail investors take informed decision before investment.

"SEBI is working towards making MF industry disclose their AUM for a retail investor to understand. If you are making a particular scheme, it is important for a retail investor to know what has been the track record of the fund manager. We see no problem in disclosing that," SEBI chairman U K Sinha said at a CII meet.

The average assets managed by the MF industry, consisting of 40 players, stood at Rs 7,00,538 crore as of March 31, 2011.

Stating that penetration of industry is low in India, Sinha added, "We find that there are several irritants. So our attempt is to remove some irritants. This is to make easy for somebody to enter the market, at the same time we are seriously thinking about introducing more disclosures."

When asked if SEBI is contemplating to re-introduce entry load to incentivise distributors, Sinha said, "I don't think re-introduction of entry load as solution on table." SEBI in 2009 had asked mutual fund companies not to deduct marketing and distribution charges from investment made by subscribers. The upfront commission is now paid by the investor to the distributor directly. — PTI

New Delhi, June 22
Telecom operators are ready to provide relief to consumers from pesky calls and messages, but are waiting for the Department of Telecom (DoT) to release identified landline number series to tele-marketing firms, says TRAI. "We have written approvals from both public and private telecom operators of their willingness to implement our guidelines," a TRAI source said.

After deliberations with telecom operators, DoT is working on a new number series for landline connections. Earlier, on a request from TRAI, the DoT had issued a number series starting with '140' to tele-marketing companies for mobile phone numbers. Since then the regulator has missed two deadlines it had set for implementing the guidelines in view of the absence of identified number series. — PTI

New York, June 22
The ranks of millionaires in Asia for the first time surpassed Europe and in a few years are expected to overtake the United States, according to the latest annual Merrill Lynch-Capgemini World Wealth Report.

Powered by fast-growing China and India, the Asia-Pacific region's millionaire ranks rose 10 per cent to 3.3 million, second only to the 3.4 million residing in North America and inching ahead of Europe, which had 3.1 million.

Asia's combined wealth, up 12 per cent to $10.8 trillion last year, surpassed Europe and threatens to overtake the United States and Canada, where wealth rose 9 percent to $11.6 trillion.

More than half of the world's millionaires are still found in the United States, Japan and Germany, but that the wealthy are spread among more countries, according to Merrill and global consulting firm Capgemini. Assets held by millionaires worldwide rose by 9.7 percent to a record $42.7 trillion - surpassing the previous high-water mark set in 2007 - while the ranks of people with at least $1 million of investable assets, excluding their primary residence, rose 8.3 percent to 10.9 million, the report found. — Reuters

Chandigarh, June 22
Job portal Monster.com is now ready to make inroads into small cities and towns, so as to maintain its growth momentum in India. The company is not just expanding its rural job portal, but also targeting small and medium enterprises in tier 2 and tier 3 towns.

The online recruitment portal is now looking at having a pan-India presence for its rural job portal. Monster has tied up with ITC, for creating this portal called ‘Rozgarduniya.com’. As of now, the portal is available to job seekers in 10,000 villages, spread over five states. But by the end of this year, the portal, hosted on the ITC website at their Chaupal outlets, will be available to job seekers in 40,000 villages across 11 states.

Talking to The Tribune here today, Sanjay Modi, MD, Monster.com (India, West Asia and South-East Asia), said other than reaching out to the rural youth, the company was now looking at convergence of technologies (mobile and Internet) to reach out to more and more people, especially in areas where the Internet access is a problem. “As mobile penetration is much higher than Internet penetration, we are using our WAP site, which can be accessed by those having net-enabled phones. In fact, we are seeing a sizeable increase in those accessing Monster.com through the mobile phones,” he said.

Modi said though the traffic on their portal was largely driven by users in the top 10 cities of the country (over 65 per cent of traffic), but the company expects that future growth will come only through the small and medium businesses, especially those located in smaller towns and cities.

Monster.com has 26 million registered users and claims that over 13,000 new resumes are uploaded on its website daily.

New Delhi, June 22
After the success of BlackBerry phone, Research in Motion (RIM) today entered into fast growing tablet PC market here with its 'PlayBook' to compete with the likes of Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

The Canadian firm has launched the PlayBook in India at Rs 27,990 (16 GB), Rs 32,990 (32GB) and Rs 37,990 (64 GB).

Globally, PlayBook is available at $ 499, $ 599 and $ 699 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions, respectively. The PlayBook is a seven-inch tablet that runs on a new operating system built by QNX Software Systems -- a RIM unit that makes software, which is used to run everything from cars to nuclear reactors.

On a PlayBook, users can go online only using a Wi-Fi network or by synchronising the device to their BlackBerry smartphones.

Apart from India, the PlayBook is scheduled to be launched in 15 countries, including the UK, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and UAE over the next few weeks.

The competition for "tablets" is hotting up in India with handset maker queuing up launches of their smart devices. A tablet PC, though smaller sized, has PC-like functionalities.

Since the launch of Apple's iPad, the tablet market is witnessing huge competition, with new contenders launching their devices.

"There are a lot of tablets being launched in India. The market is still niche but is growing at a rapid pace. The launch of PlayBook should not impact the sales of other tabs but will help grow the ecosystem," Gartner Principal Research Analyst Vishal Tripathi said. — PTI