The annual general meeting (AGM) of the M P Birla group’s Birla Corporation was adjourned today without considering any of the items on the agenda, in line with a Supreme Court directive. It will be reconvened on August 24.
The development was the latest in the long Birla-Lodha battle for control of the M P Birla estate. According to the purported will of the late Priyamvada Birla, wife of M P Birla, in 1999, the Birla Corporation was left to R S Lodha. A court battle began on the genuineness of the will. R S Lodha also passed away last year. His son, Harsh Vardhan Lodha, wanted to chair today’s AGM but was stopped by a Company Law Board order. He had petitioned the High Court here, where it couldn’t be heard and then went to the Supreme Court, which heard it this morning. The Birla family-controlled Rameshwar Jute Mills had a related appeal. After briefly hearing both sides, the SC directed the HC to hear the cross-appeals tomorrow.
Given the SC directive and the earlier CLB development, the AGM was adjourned. The adjournment motion was passed by the shareholders present.
