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“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?”

The Supreme Court will resume hearing of the case of former Punjab Director General of Police Sumedh Saini on October 5. Saini has sought protection from arrest in the 1991 case of kidnapping and murder of a junior engineer, Balwant Singh Multani.

On September 15, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the Punjab government on Saini’s petition seeking anticipatory bail and had asked the state government to respond within three weeks. It also included another one week for Saini to file his rejoinder.

While granting an interim protection from arrest to the former Punjab DGP, the apex court had asked him to cooperate in the investigation.

Multani, a junior engineer with Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation, was allegedly picked up by the police in December 1991. Saini was injured in the attack and three policemen were killed.

On September 8, the high court had dismissed Saini’s two pleas, including the one for anticipatory bail, observing that the same cannot be allowed as there is every likelihood of him stifling fair investigation and trial.

The 1982 batch IPS officer, was booked along with six others on May 6, at Mataur police station in Mohali for the alleged kidnapping of Multani. The murder charge was invoked in August after two of the accused policemen turned approvers and alleged that Saini was a culprit.

This is not the only case in which Saini is accused. He, along with three others, is on trial in a Special CBI Court in Delhi for allegedly abducting automobile businessman Vinod Kumar, his brother-in-law Ashok Kumar and their driver Mukhtiyar Singh. It has been alleged that the police picked up Vinod and Mukhtiyar from the parking lot of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on March 15, 1994.

A division bench of the Calcutta High Court yesterday refused to offer interim relief to Harsh Vardhan Lodha on an earlier probate court judgment that ordered his removal from all MP Birla group companies.

Last month Harsh Vardhan Lodha and MP Birla Group entities filed multiple applications before a division bench of the Calcutta High Court challenging the single bench order restraining Lodha from holding any post in the group. The court has asked for affidavits to be filed by October 21 and replies by November 17.

The 16-year-long legal dispute between the Birlas and the Lodha family took a fresh turn last month after a single bench of the High Court stopped Lodha from holding any position in the conglomerate.

In September, this year, a probate court had ruled that Lodha should be removed as chairman of Birla Corporation and also as a director on the boards of other MP Birla companies, including listed firms Vindhya Telelinks Ltd, Birla Cables Ltd, and Universal Cables Ltd. The order was a significant victory for the extended Birla family, which is contesting the legal validity of Priyamvada Birla’s will.

In Thursday’s order, a division bench of Chief Justice TB Radhakrishnan and Justice Shampa Sarkar said: “We are keeping open all issues for further consideration and are only proceeding to decide as to whether an ad-interim order is to be issued. We are not dealing with the judicial precedents referred to by the learned advocates for the appellants, though it is not as if we are not bearing in mind the fundamental principles brought in through those precedents, referable to the realm of testamentary jurisdiction and company law.”

Priyamvada Birla, who died in 2004, bequeathed her estate to the late Rajendra Singh Lodha, a chartered accountant who was an advisor to her for many years. Harsh Lodha is RS Lodha’s son, who currently heads the MP Birla Group.

RS Lodha, who succeeded Priyamvada Birla as chairman of the MP Birla Group, died in 2008.

The extended Birla family had opposed the will and, since 2004, have been fighting court cases against the Lodhas. Though in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that most members of the Birla clan did not have a legitimate interest in Priyamvada Birla’s estate, they continue to fight Harsh Lodha in courts through relations.

Yesterday, while a spokesperson for the Birla family said “today’s judgment was a prodigious setback for Lodha”, an official statement from Debanjan Mandal, partner, Fox & Mandal, representing Lodha, said: “Our client wasn’t, in the first place, reappointed as a director in these companies on the strength of the estate of Priyamvada Devi Birla. So the order paves the way for his continuing to hold offices in these companies as he was doing uninterruptedly from before the death of Mrs. Birla.”