The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Friday reserved its order on the plea filed by the Registrar of Companies (RoC) seeking modifications in the judgment in which Cyrus Mistry was reinstated as the executive chairman of Tata Sons.
A two-member bench, headed by chairman Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya, indicated that its order is likely to come on Monday.
During the proceedings, the ministry of corporate affairs said it was discharging its duty and has not committed any illegality in conversion of Tata Sons from a public company to a private company.
On Thursday, the NCLAT had asked for clarification on specifics of the paid-up capital requirement for the same.
The NCLAT, on December 18, directed the Tata group to reinstate Cyrus Mistry as the executive chairman of Tata Sons. The tribunal had termed the appointment of N. Chandrasekaran, as “illegal” after the October 2016 sacking of Mistry. It had also directed the RoC to reverse Tata Sons’ status from a “private company” to a “public company”.
In the order, the appellate tribunal had also quashed the conversion of Tata Sons — the principal holding company and promoter of Tata firms — into a private company from a public firm and had termed it as “illegal”.
The tribunal has said that the action taken by the RoC to allow the firm to become a private company was against the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013, and “prejudicial” and “oppressive” to the minority member (Mistry camp).
In an urgent application, which was mentioned on December 23, just five days after the NCLAT’s judgment, RoC Mumbai has asked the appellate tribunal “to carry out requisite amendments” in Para 186 and 187 (iv) of its judgement “to correctly reflect the conduct of RoC Mumbai as not being illegal and being according to the provisions of the Companies Act”.
In its plea, the RoC, which functions under the ministry of corporate affairs, had sought to be impleaded as a party in the two petitions and deletion of the words “illegal” and “with the help of the RoC” used by the NCLAT in its judgment.
It has also urged “to delete the aspersions made regarding any hurried help accorded by RoC Mumbai to Tata Sons, except what was statutorily required” in para 181 of the order.
