Continuing her legal battle to get a board seat in Ambadi Investments Limited (AIL), the flagship company of the ₹38,000-crore Murugappa group, Valli Arunachalam, the eldest daughter of former Murugappa Group executive chairman MV Murugappan, and her family moved an application before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Chennai, seeking a waiver of the minimum shareholding requirement of 10 per cent to maintain the alleged oppression and mismanagement case against AIL and also its family members.

Hearing the applicants, the NCLT has given respondents three weeks’ time to file their response and posted the matter for April 23.

Senior Counsel PS Raman, appearing for Valli Arunachalam, said that her family owns 8.21 per cent in AIL and falls short of 1.79 per cent for the minimum of 10 per cent as per Section 241 of the Companies Act 2013. He referred to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi, giving waiver to certain firms of Cyrus Mistry from the minimum requirement for maintaining a case against Tata Sons.

Incidentally, none of the family members hold more than 10 per cent of the total shareholding where all identifiable branches of the family have position on the board and active participation in the affairs of AIL, except the applicant’s family.

Raman pointed that Valli Arunachalam family’s plea for equal representation in the company’s affairs has been denied since her father’s demise a few years back. “The Murugappa family has a history of gender discrimination as Murugappan was the only male member of the family who did not have a male legal heir,” he said. The right to legal representation was not there as she was not qualified, the family members said,” according to Raman. However, Arunachalam has a doctorate in nuclear physics and a technology consultant in the US, he added.

The petition also seeks a fair buyout of their stake as per section 242 (2b) of the Companies Act 2013, Raman added.

The applicants said that even for the alternative, there is refusal to provide fair value exit from the AIL. Numerous requests of the applicants have been faced with non-cooperation, delay tactics and ‘malafide’ intentions of the respondents, they alleged.

 

 

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