NCLAT to hear Mistry's firms pleas in July

An apex corporate appellate tribunal on Thursday admitted the pleas filed by Tata Sons' ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry's investment companies.

According to the New Delhi-based National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), the pleas will be heard on July 3-7, 2017.

On April 21, Mistry's investment companies -- Cyrus Investment and Sterling Investment Corp -- approached the NCLAT against a March 6, 2017 order by the Mumbai-based National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which declared their main petition against Tata Sons as non-maintainable.

On March 6, the NCLT had ruled against the maintainability of the petition filed against Tata Sons, which cited governance lapses and compromise of minority shareholder interests after Mistry was ousted as the Chairman of the holding company of the industrial conglomerate.

The NCLT had held that Mistry's family firms were not qualified to file a petition against Tata Sons alleging mismanagement and oppression of minority shareholders.

Under the current rules, only a shareholder with more than 10 per cent effective shareholding can file a minority interest petition with the NCLT.

However, the Companies Act empowers the NCLT to waive off this requirement for a petitioner to qualify for filing a minority interest petition.

On April 17, the NCLT had dismissed a plea filed by Mistry's investment companies to waive off a regulatory bar on them as their original petition had been rendered non-maintainable by the March 6 order.

Besides the waiver plea, the main company petition, which was filed against Tata Sons, was also rejected on April 17.

On October 24 last year, Tata Sons' Board ousted Mistry as its Chairman and appointed Ratan Tata as the interim Chairman.

--IANS

rv/nir