The council, to be chaired by Justice (Retd) M L Pendse, former chief justice of the Karnataka High Court, has been appointed on a petition filed by 17 members of the prestigious organisation. The other 15 members will include six of the petitioners, six of the ex-officio members and three industrialists or other eminent persons.

A record number of 17 WTC members led by Somesh Batra had moved court as elections to the Council of Management had not been conducted as per the Memorandum of Association. Inter-alia, these members had urged the court to direct the management of the M Visveswaraya Industrial Research and Development Centre, which runs the WTC, to convene a meeting of the council to elect a president and vice-presidents and also to review the WTC's performancesince September 23, 1996.

The petitioners, who had moved court in October 1997, had alleged that WTC President Kamal Morarka, who was elected on October 9, 1995, had deliberately not convened a meeting for a long time. As per the Articles of Association, he was entitled to hold office till the first meeting of the council after the next Annual General meeting, at which he was to retire. The petitioners state that the meeting had been postponed on one pretext or the other and as a result, Morarka continued to remain in office.

In addition, Batra has also challenged the WTC management's directions on restrictions imposed on the number of members for the Management Council and registration of new members.

The order, delivered by Justice S S Nijhar last weeek, has directed that along with Batra, Arun Meghani, Surinder Sajdeh, S P Mahajan, R K Gulati and G B Rallan will be members of the interim council of management representing the petitioners, while the government nominees will be Kamal Morarka, RamolaMahajani, the chief secretary or his nominee, a nominee from anindustrial foundation, a representative of FIEO and V S Gopalkrishnan, WTC director general.

The interim council will carry on the activities of the WTC in accordance with the Memorandum and Articles of Association, but it will not take decisions on policy matters. It will also elect new members of the WTC up to a maximum of 5,000. Upon completion of the admission and registration process in respect of the new members, the WTC will call an extra-ordinary general meeting for the sole purpose of considering and voting on amendments proposed by the state government. The extra-ordinanary general meeting will be followed by the annual general meeting to elect the management council.

Meanwhile, a section of WTC members has set up the MVIRDC Members' Welfare Association to tackle members' problems. At a special meeting, they expressed shock and surprise over the ``arbitrary and unauthorised'' increase in fees which have been raised with retrospectiveeffect from 1994.