American investment Invesco firm has challenged the Bombay High Court’s Single Bench order that had granted an injunction in favour of Zee Entertainment Enterprises on the dispute related to holding an extraordinary meeting of the company.

Files appeal

Invesco has filed an appeal with the Division Bench of Justice SJ Kathawala and Justice Milind Jadhav at the Bombay High Court.

The Single Bench of Justice GS Patel, on Tuesday, granted an injunction against Invesco’s requisition to hold an extraordinary general meeting for the removal of promoter and MD Punit Goenka from the company’s board.

The court categorically came to the conclusion that Invesco’s proposals to remove Goenka and appoint six additional directors are illegal and invalid, in which case they will not be implemented, should shareholders vote in their favour. Media entertainment company Zee and Invesco have been in a month-long bitter legal battle over Invesco’s requisition of an EGM that Zee is vehemently opposing. In their latest judgment, the Bombay High Court had sided with Zee, stating that the requisition made by Invesco be “illegal, ultra vires, invalid, bad in law and incapable of implementation”.

“Sometimes, it happens that a company must be saved from its own shareholders, however well-intentioned. If a shareholder resolution is bound to cause a corporate enterprise to run aground on the always treacherous shoals of statutory compliance, there is no conceivable or logical reason to allow such a resolution even to be considered. Shareholder primacy or dominion does not extend to permitting shareholder-driven illegality,” the court observed.

Fundamental right

Invesco has maintained that shareholders have the fundamental right to hold the EGM under Section 100 of the Companies Act, wherein Invesco is fulfilling the numerical and procedural requirements in order to hold the meeting.

The date for the Bombay High Court to hear the appeal is yet to be fixed.

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