Thirty-five years after it went into liquidation, one more piece of land of closed Aryoday Spinning and Weaving Mills Company Limited has been sold for Rs 82 crore. More than 60 per cent of the mill workers have passed away waiting for the compensation ever since the mill went into liquidation.
Located in Asarwa, Aryoday Spinning and Weaving Mills Company Limited is the second mill after the Calico Mill that Gujarat High Court had decided to put under auction.
The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday confirmed the sale of 58,000 square yards of the land belonging to the Mill to Devbhoomi Agrifresh Pvt Ltd for Rs 82 crore. Other bidders Bhagyalaxmi Corporation had offered Rs 81 crore and Arham Developers had offered Rs 70.27 crore.
The company that won the bid had sought the Gujarat High Court’s intervention as the other bidders had objected to its participation in the bid.
Dhimant Vasavada, who had represented the Textile Labour Association in the litigation, was quoted in a section of the media that 3,285 workers have been waiting for their dues since the Mill’s closure. He further said that till date only Rs 55 lakh were disbursed to the workers.
Justice Mauna Bhatt said in her order, “This court is of the view that as per section 457 (1) (c) of the Companies Act 1956 read with Rule of 272 of Company Court Rules, this court has discretionary powers to accept the highest bid and confirm the sale in favour of the highest bidder, keeping the paramount interest of the secured creditors”.
The auction rekindles hope amongst the workers to get the compensation.
The court also observed that noticing the fact that on earlier occasions the very subject property was put to auction five times, but none of the auctions were successful and could never fetch any amount to match up with the creditors, and more particularly the dues of the workmen whose generations have changed waiting for the glimpse of their hard-earned money due to the recovered by liquidating the assets of the company in liquidation.
