Company Tribunal rejects Cyrus Mistry's waiver demand

Cyrus Mistry on Monday suffered the final snub from the National Company Law Tribunal, which rejected an application for waiver of minimum shareholding norm required to claim oppression and mismanagement by the Tatas.

This follows a previous order in March when it termed unmaintainable the claims of oppression and mismanagement made by the Shapoorji Pallonji Group companies as the group did not meet the minimum shareholding threshold of 10% of issued share capital prescribed under Section 244 of the Companies Act, 2013.

While Cyrus claimed a shareholding of over 18%, the Tatas had argued that it was actually 2.17% after considering the preference shares.

Following this ruling, Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments asked for a waiver of the minimum shareholding requirement which on Monday got rejected.

"We hope this brings to an end a vexatious campaign against the company, the Tata Trusts and Ratan Tata. Tata Sons will continue its focus on its future development under the stewardship of our executive chairman N Chandrasekaran," F N Subedar, chief operating officer of Tata, Sons said in a statement issued after the order.

Mistry, however, wouldn't give up and is now expected to approach the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal once the formal order is in his hand.

"Tata Sons interprets the ruling by the NCLT as demonstrating that the petitioners failed to make a convincing or compelling case that warranted a hearing on alleged mismanagement, oppression or other actions. The NCLT ruling is the fifth such ruling by the company law tribunals rejecting reliefs requested by the Shapoorji Pallonji Group companies and Cyrus Mistry," the Tata statement said.