Tata Sons cannot forcibly buy Cyrus Mistry's shares for now: NCLAT
New Delhi, Aug 24 : In a temporary relief to Cyrus Mistry, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Friday stated that Tata Sons cannot force him to sell his shares till the disposal of his appeal.
However, the appellate tribunal declined his plea for a stay on the conversion of Tata Sons into a private company.
The two-judge bench headed by Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyaya said it will decide on the conversion of Tata Sons, parent company of $103 billion Tata Group, from a public limited company into a private limited company after hearing the final arguments. The next hearing of the case is slated for September 24.
Mistry, who took over as Tata Group Chairman in December 2012 and was ousted in October 2016 by the Tata Sons board, had filed the petition with the NCLAT against the July 9 decision of the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) Mumbai bench.
The bench had upheld the decision of the Tata Sons board dismissing Mistry as Chairman.
On July 9, the NCLT Mumbai bench ruled that the Tata Sons Board of Directors was competent to remove the Executive Chairman and that Mistry was ejected as the board members had lost confidence in him.
The NCLT verdict had come on a petition filed by Mistry after he was abruptly ousted as the Chairman that had created an upheaval in the Indian corporate world.
Mistry later quit from the board of other six Tata Group companies but challenged the Group, and former and interim Chairman Ratan Tata's decisions, before the NCLT.
Last September, the shareholders of Tata Sons agreed to convert the public limited company into a private limited company, which in effect would restrict any shareholder from selling its stake to outsiders.
The shareholders approved the conversion saying it would help the company become more swift in decision making despite Mistry's opposition to it. Mistry, through his family firms Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments, owns 18.4 per cent of Tata Sons while 66 per cent is owned by Tata Trusts.
Mistry's family had termed the decision as an act of oppression of minority shareholders.
On August 10, the Registrar of Companies approved the decision of Tata Sons to go private.
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Explosion near CRPF School in Delhi caused by lit cigarette butts: Report
New Delhi: The investigation team that probed the explosion that took place outside the CRPF School in the Prashant Vihar area of the city on October 20 morning has reportedly not found any terror force behind the blast.
The investigation team, consisting of Delhi Police and staff members from central agencies, has stated in its report that cigarette butts thrown by a local resident might have come in contact with industrial waste and have caused the explosion. Circumstantial evidence does not show the incident to have a terror angle to it, reports The Indian Express.
The Delhi Police, the city bomb squad and the fire brigade had rushed to the spot following the explosion, which was initially believed to have been caused by a crude bomb. The forensic experts who inspected the spot hinted at the presence of potassium chlorate, hydrogen peroxide and some electrical wires there. The school wall had been damaged and the windows of a car nearby had shattered in the explosion.
The investigation team scanned the CCTV camera footage and zeroed in on around 10 people questioned. A senior police officer said that a North Delhi-based businessman from Prashant Vihar was found to be present at the spot around five minutes before the explosion, as he had come there on Sunday morning to walk his dog. The CCTV footage showed him smoking and, after questioning him, the team concluded that he had left lit cigarette butts before leaving the spot, the officer added.
The spot where the explosion took place is learned to have been usually used for dumping garbage and also has a public urinal.
An officer has said that the Delhi Police had consulted forensic and technical experts of the National Security Guard regarding the things found on the explosion site but are yet to get the report. The officer added that they have found no detonator so far.
