The Hindu Business Line : Govt urged to respect judicial verdicts

Coimbatore, Sept. 16 The President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Coimbatore, Mr Mahendra Ramdas, has cautioned that there would be ‘total anarchy’ if the State Government persisted with the practice of trying to circumvent judicial pronouncements.

He also called upon the trade unions to change their attitude in view of the intense competition the country is facing from nations such as China and Brazil in a globalised economy.

Addressing the 75th AGM of ICCI, he said the economy appeared to be on the road to recovery and in the first three months of the current fiscal, the economic performance was better than the earlier two quarters and he hoped the worst was over. But the continuous fall in exports showed that the US and western markets still were in the grip of economic downturn.

Total anarchy

Mr Ramdas cited three areas that required specific attention. He said that of late, there is a “tendency in the Government to bypass court verdicts and interpret new meanings to orders passed (by) regulatory bodies”. He feared that if the Government, which has to “set an example for the people to follow, pays scant respect to judicial pronouncements, then the day is not far when we have total anarchy”. He cited as example the “way the State Government recently tried to get around certain orders passed by the Supreme Court on electricity related matters” because of which the industry is facing a lot of problems related to “restriction and control measures” adopted by the Electricity Board.

Minority report

The ICCI President also said the trade unions “seem to be looking only at the welfare of the organised sector employees in factories” who are a minuscule minority compared to the large population that is dependent on the corporates for their survival. He said that for every employee affiliated to the trade unions, there were at least 30 workers working in ancillary units and support services outside the factories. But the livelihood of such a huge pool of employees goes unnoticed “while the trade unions hold everyone to ransom”, he said, and wanted them to change in the light of what is happening around the world and due to the fierce competition from countries such as China and Brazil.

Need for support

Mr Ramdas said the two stimulus packages helped to arrest economic downturn. The banks, which were asked to advance fresh loans to the trade and industry to meet their working capital requirements, advanced them as short-term loans.

The insistence of banks that the entire loans have to be repaid in a few months is bound to lead to financial crunch in the near term. The industry needed all the support of Government Departments and banks and they should not shy way from this at this crucial moment, he said.

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