Mumbai: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday reserved orders in the preliminary issue on whether ousted Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry 's family-held firms are eligible under the companies act to seek relief for acts of alleged oppression and mismanagement against them as minority shareholders of the $103-billion corporate conglomerate. The order will be passed on March 6, said a bench of Prakash Kumar and Nallensenapathy after concluding a hearing on maintainability of a petition filed by the two firms.The case was related to Cyrus Investment and Sterling Investment Corporation against Tata Sons, Ratan Tata , other directors and trustees. In this case, they said, the two firms were equity shareholders who, with 18%, have more than the requisite shareholding.But Tata Sons said it only amounted to 2.17 % since preference shares must be factored in and, hence, rendered them ineligible. Dwarkadas said, "The issue is whether to take literal meaning for issued share capital or to say that it could not have been intended by the legislature that equity shareholders should be deprived from approaching court for remedy against oppression just because of a wider meaning of including both equity and preference shareholders? ""Are we going to give an interpretation, which strains the provision to make sections 241 and 242 of companies act, which provide for remedy against oppressive and mismanagement otiose in companies where preference share capital comprises exceeds equity?"

Source: Times of India February 20, 2017 22:30 UTC