Ousted Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry’s family firms – Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investment Corporation – on Thursday moved the National Company law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) seeking a stay on the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) called by Tata Sons on February 6 to consider removal of Mistry from its board. The matter will be heard on Friday.
Though Mistry had moved the National Company Law Tribunal, where the matter is sub-judice, the tribunal declined to stay the EGM called by Tata Sons.
Mistry wants the NCLAT to restrain Tata Sons “from taking steps of any nature or initiating action of any nature, directly or indirectly” to remove himy as a director of Tata Sons.
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Mistry was sacked on October 24 and subsequently resigned from the board of six group companies, but dragged Tata Sons to NCLT alleging oppression of minority shareholders and mismanagement at the firm.
Challenging the NCLT order of January 18 and January 31 that refused to grant a stay on the Tata Sons EGM, the companies said the impugned order of January 18 did not at all deal with the stay application on merits and only set out the tribunal’s views on the contempt of court. It further said that order of January 18 also took the view that the attempt to remove Mistry did not constitute contempt of court on the ground that contempt jurisdiction is a narrow and strict jurisdiction. Seeking “urgent intervention” of the appellate tribunal, they said that the tribunal had in December fixed a very tight schedule” for hearing on the basis of its then assessment of the matter and that too in the absence of any plea for stay of EGM. The schedule was also decided on the basis that no further action or proceedings would be initiated till the disposal of the matter, the petition said.
However, the three Trustee of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust – N A Soonawala, R K Krishnakumar and R Venkatramana – “within days of the consent order … and in utter violation of the order dated December 22, 2016, issued a requisition to call for an EGM to remove Cyrus Pallonji Mistry as the director from the BoDs of Tata Sons,” it said, adding that all these development led to the filing of a contempt petition.
“The original interim application which pursued the prayer for no change to be effected to the BoDs of Tata Sons was in fact listed by the Registry in the cause list for January 31 for final hearing. It was nobody’s understanding that the application to stay the proposed removal of Mistry had been disposed of,” it said.
According to the petition, it was only vide impugned order of January 31 that the tribunal clarified that the stay application had been rejected on January 18 and that it was open to the Mistry family firms to file an appeal which they failed to do.
