A division bench of the Bombay High Court on Friday deferred the hearing of a suit filed by Invesco Developing Markets Fund, challenging an injunction order by the court, to November 29.
On Thursday, the largest investor in Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL), Invesco, filed an ordinary suit challenging a Bombay High Court injunction order that restrained the company from convening an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). The petition came up for hearing before the division bench of SJ Kathawalla and Milind Jadhav on Friday.
On Tuesday, a single judge bench of the Bombay High Court had granted an injunction in favour of ZEEL observing that directing ZEEL to call an EGM would be potentially non-compliant and there were fundamental flaws in Invesco’s construct.
The court was hearing a plea filed by ZEEL on October 2 asking it to declare Invesco’s EGM requisition as “illegal”. Later on Wednesday, Invesco counsel Janak Dwarkadas had informed the National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) Mumbai bench that the investor might move an appeal against the order.
On September 11, Invesco had issued a requisition letter asking ZEEL’s board to hold an EGM to evict certain directors, including ZEEL chief executive officer and managing director Punit Goenka. Invesco, which together with its subsidiary OFI Global China Fund holds a 17.88% stake in ZEEL, had also sought induction of six of its nominees on ZEEL’s board.