Stay unfair: Ministers

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac and Industries Minister Elamaram Karim have questioned the fairness of a High Court stay on the use of excess funds lying with the Malabar Cements for investment in other public sector units.

�The honourable single judge issued the stay on Tuesday [following a petition for the general secretary of an unrecognised union] without giving an opportunity for the government to be heard, they said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

The Ministers said Malabar Cements was a State public sector company. The government had taken a decision to use the substantial excess funds lying with some of its profit-making companies not only as investment by way of equity in other public sector ventures, but also for providing loans to other promising public sector units, thereby optimising the utility resources.

This decision, announced in the State budget, was part of the measures the government had been adopting for making the public sector dynamic and vibrant. The board of directors of each company had the legal powers to decide how best to utilise the companys resources and how best to develop the manufacturing and business processes by synergising operations with other units.

They said the stay order was tantamount to the court intervening in the decision-making powers of the government.