Mistry Firms Challenge NCLT Order On Maintainability At NCLAT 

Cyrus Mistry is ready for another round of legal battle against Tata Sons Ltd., this time at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).

Two Mistry family firms have approached the appeals tribunal against the March 6 ruling of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) that they did not own the requisite shareholding to bring charges of oppression and mismanagement against Tata Sons, people familiar with the development told BloombergQuint.

The firms own a combined 18.4 percent of ordinary equity shares of Tata Sons, but their holding falls below the required 10 percent when preference shares are taken into account.

Section 244 of the Companies Act 2013 lays down the threshold to bring a case of oppression and mismanagement under Section 241. The law gives the tribunal discretion to allow a shareholder or group of shareholders to bring a case of oppression and mismanagement even if they represent less than 10 percent of the total shareholding or one tenth of all shareholders.

The Mistry firms had argued for a waiver of the eligibility criteria in order to pursue the oppression and mismanagement case. But the NCLT on April 17 had denied the waiver. A detailed copy of that order is expected later on Friday.

The companies had moved the NCLT against Tata Sons and Ratan Tata in December last year, nearly two months after Mistry was removed as chairman of the Tata Group's holding company.