Delhi High Court clears decks for split in Atlas Cycles

New Delhi, May 7 (UNI) After almost three years of legal battle, the Delhi High Court has finally cleared the decks for division of the Atlas group among the three descendents of Janki Das Kapur, the founder of the company.

While upholding the valuation report prepared by Ernst&Young Pvt Ltd to divide the Rs 407-crore Atlas Cycles (Haryana) Ltd, Justice Madan B Lokur said the valuation was final and binding on all the parties and due respect should be given to the family settlement arrived at by all the members.

The Atlas Cycles has three factories at Sonepat (Haryana), Sahibabad (UP) and Malanpur (MP), which will go to late Janki Das's three sons -- B D Kapur, Jai Dev Kapur and Jagdish Kapur as decided by Sole Arbitrator- former Chief Justice of India A M Ahmadi.

''Since the parties had agreed to be bound by the valuation given by K N Memani (valuer), they should accept the impugned report as a matter of grace rather than pick small loopholes in it,'' Justice Lokur said.

B D Kapur's son Arun and grandsons--Akshya and Ashwat had filed the suit seeking direction to stay on the implementation of the valuation report.

Arun Kapur, who was ousted from the management and affairs of the Malanpur unit of Atlas Cycles (Haryana) Ltd in March 2001 allegedly for siphoning off around Rs 10.45 crore, had also filed an appeal against the arbitrator's award directing him to deposit Rs 5 crore.

In January 1999, the Kapur brothers - B D Kapur, Jai dev Kapur and Jagdish Kapur - who jointly owned the group of companies thought it prudent to amicably split the ownership, management and control of the three manufacturing units in three equal shares. An MoU was signed between the members to divide the assets equally. But B D Kapur did before executing the split leaving the family members to fight it both at home turf and court rooms.

The MoU envisaged that one cycle unit would fall to the share of each group after the evaluation at the present market price of the assets into three equal baskets by a draw of lots in the presence of Justice Ahmadi.

The market areas for domestic sales and exports for each separate unit would be clearly identified and demarcated in the agreement.

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