The National Company Law Tribunal’s Bengaluru bench will on Tuesday take up the petition filed by four investors of Byju’s citing oppression and mismanagement against the company’s management. The cause list on the tribunal’s website shows that the petition will be taken up for admission.
The petition, which was filed last week and has been signed by four investors – Prosus, GA, Sofina, and Peak XV along with support from other shareholders including Tiger, Owl Ventures — seeks to declare founders — Byju Raveendran and family — as unfit to run the company. It has urged for appointing a new board, declare the ongoing rights issue as void, conduct a forensic audit, among other reliefs.
The other concerns raised by the petitioners include financial mismanagement by the founders leading to losing control of Aakash, Byju’s Alpha (term loan B) default, prolonged corporate governance issues including non-hiring of CFO and independent director, oppressive nature of the $200 million rights offer, regulatory non-compliances, oppressive opacity and wilful default in sharing information with stakeholders.
As reported earlier, a group of investors had voted last week at the company’s extraordinary general meeting to oust Raveendran, his wife Divya Gokulnath and his brother Riju Raveendran from the board. Subsequently, Raveendran had written a letter to the employees of the edtech firm, emphasising that he continues to remain in office and there are no changes at the company..
On Raveendran’s petition, the Karnataka high court had earlier ruled that the resolutions passed at the EGM cannot be implemented till the next hearing on the matter on March 13.