Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Cyrus Mistry’s Plea For Seat On Tata Sons Board
Mistry is seeking representation proportionate to the stake held by him in the company, said lawyer C. Aryama Sundaram.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Cyrus Mistry’s petition seeking representation on the board of Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd.
The top court on Friday issued notice on the petition and tagged the case along with apetition filed by Tata Sons that challenged the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s ruling that said Mistry’s dismissal from Tata Sons was illegal.
In Friday’s petition, the Mistry side argued that while the NCLAT upheld their arguments with clear findings that favoured them, the subsequent reliefs granted by the appellate tribunal doesn’t do complete justice to them. The Mistry side has also challenged Article 121 of the Articles of Association of Tata Sons, which says it allows select directors to override the views of the board of directors.
If the NCLAT had granted relief, it would have addressed their complaint of oppression against Tata Sons and brought an end to it, the Mistry group said.
Mistry is seeking representation proportionate to stake held by him in the company, lawyer C Aryama Sundaram, who is representing Mistry, told Bloomberg News.
Mistry along with his family owns 18.4% shareholding in Tata Sons, the parent of the salt-to-software Tata Group. In October 2016, Mistry was removed as the chairman of Tata Sons and later as a director.
This led to two Mistry-controlled firms taking the legal recourse and as they approached the National Company Law Tribunal in December that year alleging oppression and mismanagement. In July 2018, the NCLT pronounced its verdict and rejected the arguments by the Mistry firms rejecting the plea to re-instate Mistry as executive chairman of Tata Sons.
However, when the case went in appeal at the NCLAT, it reversed the judgment of the tribunal and found merit in allegations that the removal of Mistry from his position was illegal. The NCLAT re-instated Mistry to his position of executive chairman but granted a four-week stay to allow Tata Sons to file an appeal against the order.
In January, the apex court had stayed the NCLAT judgment that had held Cyrus Mistry was illegally ousted as Tata Sons chairman.