The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the review petition filed by Cyrus Mistry challenging the top court’s decision to quash the direction passed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order that had directed reinstatement of Cyrus Mistry as the Executive Chairman of the Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.
A bench of Chief Justice N.V.Ramana, Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice V.Ramansubramanian however, assured senior advocate C.A Sundram appearing for Mistry that the court would expunge certain remarks made by the Apex court in March last year while setting aside the NCLAT order.
However, it did not divulge which portion of the judgment would be expunged and the official order was not uploaded till late in the night.
Senior advocate Harish Salve appearing for Tata Sons Ltd also told the court that the company has no objections to the expunge of certain remarks made in the 2021 judgment against Mistry.
He said that the court may permit the deletion of one or a few sentences “as an act of grace” and not for the reasons given in the application of the Sapoorji Pallonji (SP) group.
According to Mistry the impugned judgment had made certain unwarranted observations which adversely affected the “reputation, integrity and character” of Mistry. Hence the same ought to be expunged/deleted from the records.
On March 26, 2021, a bench of then Chief Justice of India S.A Bobde and Justice A.S.Bopanna and Justice V.Ramasubramanian had set aside a 2019 order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order that had directed reinstatement of Cyrus Mistry as the Executive Chairman of the Tata Sons Pvt Ltd.
The Apex court had passed the said judgment on an appeal by Tata Sons against the NCLAT judgment, in which it had contended that the Appellate Tribunal had gone beyond the pleadings raised by the rival groups and chose to install Mistry as Executive Chairman when he himself had not such a directive.
Ratan Tata and Tata Sons on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court's dismissal of a plea of the Sapoorji Pallonji (SP) group seeking a review of the verdict that upheld the Tata group's removal of Cyrus Mistry as Chairman of Tata Sons.
Reacting to the development, in a statement Tata, who is the Chairman Emeritus said, “We wold like to express our grateful appreciation of the judgement passed and upheld by the Supreme Court today.” He further said, “It reinforces the value systems and ethics of our judiciary.”
In a separate statement Tata Sons said: “We welcome today's order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court with humility. It reaffirms, once again, Tata Group's position which was upheld by a unanimous judgment last year.
The company also reiterated “its commitment to work towards nation building, and maintaining standards of governance and ethical conduct that have guided Tata Group in all its businesses over the years.”
It was further argued that even in terms of the original appointment Mistry’s term had expired in March 2017, but the NCLAT extended his term beyond the tenure by directing his reinstatement on December 19, 2019.
The Tatas had contended that the NCLAT order was a blow to corporate democracy by overlooking the rights of the majority shareholders.
It was further contended that NCLAT had no jurisdiction to declare Tata Sons as a "public company" when it is a "private company" under Section 2(68) of the Companies Act 2013.
While upholding the Tata’s appeal the apex bench headed by then Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde at that time had made certain critical remarks on the conduct of Mistry. Aggrieved by the same Mistry while seeking review of the judgment had also sought expunge of some of the remarks in the judgment.
Ratan Tata and Tata Sons on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court's dismissal of a plea of the Sapoorji Pallonji (SP) group seeking a review of the verdict that upheld the Tata group's removal of Cyrus Mistry as Chairman of Tata Sons.
Reacting to the development, in a statement Tata, who is the Chairman Emeritus said, “We would like to express our grateful appreciation of the judgement passed and upheld by the Supreme Court today.”
He further said, “It reinforces the value systems and ethics of our judiciary.”
In a separate statement Tata Sons said: “We welcome today's order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court with humility. It reaffirms, once again, Tata Group's position which was upheld by a unanimous judgment last year.
The company also reiterated “its commitment to work towards nation building, and maintaining standards of governance and ethical conduct that have guided Tata Group in all its businesses over the years.”
