NCLT to pronounce order on Tata-Mistry battle today: All you need to know

The Mumbai Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) will pronounce its order on the Tata-Mistry battle on Wednesday. The legal feud has been replete with war of words, both sides exchanging barbs through defamation suits, hundreds of affidavits and references to past emails and letters, unprecedented in the Tata Group's 150-year-old history and in the history of corporate India. The judge's order will set a landmark precedence for corporate feuds particularly, for promoter-led firms. Business Standard reflects on the 18-month-old battle. 

Mistry firms’ allegations against Tata Sons at NCLT 

• Mismanagement at Tata Sons and oppression of minority shareholders 
   
• Corporate governance breakdown and excessive interference by Tata Trusts 
   
• Illegal removal of Cyrus Mistry
   
• Abuse of Articles of Association 
   
• Violation of insider trading norms

Tata Sons’ response 

• Mistry’s removal not illegal
   
• Mistry was acquainted with the affairs of Tata Sons
   
• Mistry was quite about the alleged mismanagement during his tenure as chairman
   
• Allegations against Ratan Tata misconceived 
   
• Flawed business decisions do not tantamount to oppression 

Allegations against Ratan Tata 

• The chairman who never retired 
   
• It was on the behest and influence of Ratan Tata that Tata Sons’ board removed Mistry
   
• Tata was seeking to control through abuse and misuse of the Articles of Association
   
• Was responsible for aviation misadventure, Nano project and flawed global acquisition strategy 

Ratan Tata’s rebuttals 

• It was Mistry who extended Tata an invitation to be chairman emeritus 
   
• Mistry actively sought guidance from Tata and his suggestions were not unsolicited 
   
• Mistry’s removal as a chairman was led by trust deficit among Tata Sons directors 
   
• Foreign acquisitions and Tata Sons' investment,in the aviation sector was a unanimous decision of the Tata Steel board 

      

What Mistry family wants NCLT to do 

• Wind up the Tata Sons board and appoint an administrator or a retired SC judge; appoint new independent directors 
   
• Restrain the so-called interim chairman from attending any meeting of the board of directors 
   
• Direct Tata Sons to not issue any security which could lead to a dilution in the equity capital 
   
• Appoint an independent auditor to conduct investigations into the transactions of AirAsia 
   
• Restrain Tata Sons from entering businesses, or acquiring any new business, without the consent of the tribunal 
   
• Restrain the trustees from interfering in the affairs of Tata Sons and Tata group companies