No interim relief to Cyrus Mistry’s family companies for now, says law tribunal

Cyrus Mistry recently decided to take bitter feud between him and Tata Groups to the court filing a petition against the group. However, no interim relief was given to petitioners by National Company Law Tribunal in its first hearing on the case of oppressive conduct against Tata Sons.

The judge also issued a stay preventing any interim application being filed in any of the other courts. The more than two hour long hearing saw lawyer A Sundaram charge allegations against Ratan Tata and Tata Sons. The date of the next hearing was fixed for 31st of January and 1st of February.

The Mistry’s coucel said that he shouldn’t be removed from the board of Tata Sons; there should not be any securities which results in the dilution of the present paid up equity capital held by the petitioners in Tata Sons. The council also said that there should not be any change in Articles of Association unless allowed by the court. They also spoke about irregularities in Air Asia and how on 24th of October , Mistry wanted to discuss the Deloitte report that highlighted these irregularities. Sundaram also said that the then chairman wanted to propose a framework of governance but instead he got removed.

They also linked Tata Sons and Ratan Tata with the Rs 22 crore fraudulent transactions alleged to have been carried out in the conglomerate's joint venture airline AirAsia India. It said as part of the transactions, the salt-to-software conglomerate at the behest of Tata, had dealings with Hamid Reza Malakotipour, an alleged sanctioned global terrorist. On both allegations, they have cited the report by Deloitte which conducted a forensic investigation on AirAsia India.

Sundaram also tabled accusations against Ratan Tata of insider trading and the influence of Lord Bhattacharya in decisions of the group.

The judicial member BSV Prakash Kumar asked petitioners why they Mistry had not raised these issues earlier and also asked them to show proof of these accusations.

Tata Sons was represented by Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Mistry- the former chairman of Tata Sons, was ousted on 24th October.