In the context of Mumbai high court's stay of the centre's notification on the prices of certain drug formulations and the Supreme Court order on the validity of share allotments by Mafatlal Industries, the question is whether judicial redress is really the ultimate way out in matters governing the corporate sector.

More so, when one recalls the apex court's candid admission in the dispute over cellular services tenders earlier that it could only go into questions of public interest and not areas demanding special knowledge. One is not suggesting that difficult commercial decisions are beyond the competence of the judiciary but only mooting a different mechanism for resolution of issues where only a commercial judgement is called for.

Courts are essentially to safeguard public interest and they are already seriously constrained by a combination of factors boiling down to too much work for too few judges. The complaint of heavy backlogs in the courts is only partly of the litigants.

The judiciary itself has aired the same grievance. When the high courts and the Supreme Court are saddled with all kinds of work, petitions, appeals and requests for stays, perhaps, the time has come to work out an arrangement by which the courts will largely concern themselves with public interest-related work and delegate commercial disputes to special tribunals and alternatively the regulatory agencies like SEBI and Company Law Board themselves.

The expert panel on amendments to the Companies Act has mooted strengthening the Company Law Board, which could be used as the starting point for making statutory regulators exercise the powers of the judiciary.

Obviously, the tribunals and these agencies should have the judicial competence to match their authority. This needs underscoring in the light of the shortcomings, for instance, on the part of consumer courts, where the high courts and even the Supreme Court had to intervene to put a stop to a flagrant misuse of authority.

Generally, it must be provided that unless there are serious infringements of public interest commercial matters like pricing and share allotment should be dealt with by quasi-judicial agencies. No doubt, there has to be a national debate on this.

The apex bodies of trade and industry and representative institutions of professionals have to be involved in the debate and their concerns must be heard.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.