CLB to hear Telenor, Unitech petitions on Tuesday

The Company Law Board (CLB) would tomorrow hear the cross-petitions filed by Norway's telecom giant Telenor and its Indian partner Unitech over the dispute surrounding their joint venture, Uninor.

Following the order of the CLB, a quasi-judiciary body that rules on corporate matters, Telenor and Unitech have already filed their modified petitions before the board to remove or restrain each other's representatives from Uninor.

Telenor holds over 67% stake in Uninor, while the rest is with Unitech.

On March 1, the CLB had returned the petitions of Telenor and Unitech on technical grounds and over certain deficiencies in filing.

Before returning the petitions, CLB Chairman Justice B R Deshmukh had asked the warring partners to mediate to resolve their differences.

"Parties should sit together and work out on settlement by way of compensation," he had said observing that the present hostility between Telenor and Unitech is to an extent that both want to push the other out from their JV firm Uninor.

CLB had asked the parties to mention their petition after curing the defect on March 13.

The Norwegian firm wants to dump its partner, Unitech after the Supreme Court on February 2 revoked 22 mobile licences held by their joint venture.

While Telenor had requested for the "exclusion" and "removal" of Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra and his two other nominees from the "management and administrative affairs of Uninor", Unitech had asked for maintaining the status quo of Uninor, and not allowing transfer of its assets to any other company without its consent.