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Judgment
K.M. Joseph, J.—Petitioner has approached this Court seeking the following reliefs:
(i) Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ commanding the 1st respondent to provide proper and adequate police protection to the petitioner and his crew members for operating the vehicles mentioned in Exts.P1 and P2.
(ii) Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ commanding the 3rd respondent to provide effective guidelines to the Police Authorities in the State against forcible seizure of the motor vehicles and other secured assets on behalf of the Scheduled Banks and non banking finance institution.
Briefly put, the case of the petitioner is as follows:
Petitioner is a contract carriage operator of two vehicles. The vehicles are hypothecated to the second respondent. Complaint is that the second respondent has authorised goonda elements to forcibly seize the vehicles. Reliance is placed on the decisions mentioned in paragraph 5 of the Writ Petition.
We heard the learned Counsel for the petitioner, learned Counsel appearing for the party respondent and also the learned Government Pleader.
It is undoubtedly the legal position that the financier cannot seize the vehicle without authority of law, i.e. by either approaching the arbitral forum or the competent civil court. It is submitted by the learned Counsel for the second respondent that an amount of Rs. 13 and odd Lakhs are due from the petitioner. It is also submitted that the second respondent has approached the District Court, Ernakulam and commenced arbitration proceedings and also obtained attachment of the immovable properties of the petitioner and the second respondent has no intention to seize the vehicles of the petitioner bearing registration Nos. KL-8AG-2277 and KL-8AB-7277. We feel that a conditional order should be passed. In the circumstances of the case, we direct that if the petitioner pays a sum of Rs. 1.5 Lakhs (Rupees One Lakh & Fifty Thousand) to the second respondent in two instalments of Rs. 75,000/= each, the first of which shall be payable on or before 30.8.2010 and the further instalment of Rs. 75,000/= on or before 30.9.2010, there will be a direction to the first respondent to provide adequate protection to the petitioner against any illegal re-possession of the vehicles by the second respondent. We make it clear that we have not pronounced on the question of the amount due and the Forum shall be free to decide the issue untrammeled by anything contained in this Judgment.
The Writ Petition is disposed of as above.