The Chennai bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Wednesday allowed the withdrawal plea relating to an earlier waiver petition filed by Valli Arunachalam and her family members for maintaining an alleged oppression and mismanagement company petition against Ambadi Investments (AIL), the holding firm of the Murugappa Group and its family members.

With this order in favour of Arunachalam, her fresh waiver application along with the company petition would now be taken up on October 13 and Murugappa Group family members can file responses to the plea.

The NCLT bench comprising R Sucharita, member-judicial, and Anil Kumar B, member-technical, said in the present case the tribunal has not yet passed any orders on the waver application filed under Section 241 of the Companies Act and, in the said circumstances, withdrawal of an application will not arise and hence rule 82 of NCLT Rules, 2016, will not attract for the withdrawal of the present application.

“However, based up on just and equitable ground and up on perusal of the application and also based up on the averments made in the application, we are of the considered view that the withdrawal application is required to be allowed,” the Bench observed.

NCLT, on the issue of fresh waiver and company applications, said as the second waiver application was filed before the tribunal when the earlier waiver application was pending, the same has become infructuous. “However, by considering the factual matrix of the present case, the second waiver application is taken on the file of this tribunal , and objections if any shall be taken up, at an appropriate stage, when the matter is listed for hearing on October 13,” the Bench said.

The MVM family which has the wife and daughters of M V Murugappan, the late executive chairman of Murugappa Group, has been fighting a battle of oppression against the Murugappa family, seeking a board position and equal representation in the Murugappa family business.

Given that the MVM family holds less than 10% of the shareholding, they had moved a waiver application, seeking permission from the NCLT to press their company petition alleging oppression and mismanagement against Murugappa family members and companies under the control of AIL.

MVM family holds 8.21% stake in AIL. The Murugappa group members questioned the maintainability through a bunch of 10 applications and pointed out errors in the waiver plea while seeking dismissal of the same.

The trigger for filing the petition was Murugappa family members voting against the appointment of Arunachalam, eldest daughter of MV Murugappan, as a director on the board of the AIL, after asking her to apply through the AGM.