Evaluation of Supreme Court Judgment in Escorts Case (AIR 1986 SC 1370)
By
Samaraditya Pal
The Escorts judgment delivered by the Supreme Court, AIR 1986 SC 1370 is an unfortunate instance of how the highest judicial institution of the country has bulldozed and destroyed a perfectly wholesome legislative safeguard contained in the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1973 (FERA) against possible destabilisation of Indian economy by indiscriminate investment of foreign capital. But since what the Supreme Court says is the law of the land (Art 141 of the Constitution), the burden of this essay is to activate the legislature to use its legislative process to obliterate this retrograde step taken by the Supreme Court and amend the FERA by 'clarifying' what was already crystal clear i.e., foreign capital must obtain governmental clearance before entering India if the economic independence of our republic is to be preserved.
The protagonists in the case are : Escorts Limited a well known Indian Company and Sri Swaraj Paul a British citizen of Indian origin.
Swaraj Pau ....