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Coming down heavily on the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai bench’s order that dismissed his plea against Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry has alleged that the entire judgment of the tribunal is “vitiated by legal bias and suffers from lack of objectivity and impartiality”.
In a second petition filed before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in New Delhi, the ousted chairman of the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group alleged that incorrect recording of facts bolstered arguments against the Mistry family. Further, Mistry has also sought “expungement of several caustic remarks made against him”, sources briefed on the legal tangle told BusinessLine .
Second petition
The second petition, filed in his personal capacity, also sought the entire July 9 NCLT judgment to be set aside. It also charged the NCLT order with drawing support from selective reliance on extraneous material from Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica and websites of Tata Trusts. At the same time, the petition said, the order ignores or misinterprets important facts placed before it,
One of the sources, quoting the NCLAT filing, said: “In the petition Mistry has highlighted the foundations of the order were based on errors. In his filing, Mistry has pointed out that NCLT wrongly recorded that Mistry was on the board of Tata Sons when the questionable transaction was done with Siva (serial entreprenuer C Sivasankaran) and as also being on board of Tata Sons when the Corus deal was done.”
On Tata Nano, the petition said that the NCLT order has erroneously stated that there was no proof to show that the Tata Motors board had decided to stop the production of the small car. However, the minutes of Tata Motors’ board meeting on October 5, 2016, shows that the board had authorised closure of Nano operations.
While the sources refused to be identified, Mistry’s office declined to comment terming the issue as being sub judice . Both the petitions of Mistry will come up for hearing at NCLAT on September 24.
The petition said that the NCLT order also incorrectly interprets Section 121A and 121A(h) of the Articles of Association of Tata Sons on investments of more than ₹100 crore taken by Tata companies’ boards would require pre-consultation and clearances from Tata Trusts. Further, these have to be cleared by Tata Sons.
This would render boards of listed Tata operating companies, including its independent directors, incapable of exercising their fiduciary duties, the petition before NCLAT alleges.
The Mumbai court had also recorded that Mistry was removed as chairman under a board agenda titled ‘Any other items’, which according to the NCLAT petition, “did not exist”.
Further, the petition said, removal of a chairman could have only been done through a committee, as confirmed in Tata Sons board minutes of July 3, 2000. This was suppressed by Tata Sons in its submissions and allegedly ignored by NCLT, despite being brought to its notice, it added.
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