Invesco, the largest shareholder in ZEE, had approached the division bench of the high court in November last year against the injunction order passed by Justice GS Patel.
In its challenge, Invesco said that the high court did not have the right to hear the case because of Section 430 of the Companies Act, 2013 and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) was the right tribunal to hear the case.
ZEE’s senior lawyer Aspi Chenoy said that the civil court had full jurisdiction over the case because Section 430 did not apply in this case.
“The matter here is about a requisition notice for the calling of an EGM (extraordinary general meeting) of the shareholders by Invesco, which ZEE has rejected due to invalidity,” Chenoy argued. “Whether their requisition is valid or not, it doesn’t come under Section 98 of the Companies Act and, thus, it is not excluded from the civil court’s jurisdiction.”
The division bench of justices S J Kathawala and Milind Jadhav posted the hearing of Invesco’s plea for Tuesday.
On September 11 last year, Invesco, through Invesco Developing Markets Fund and OFI Global China Fund LLC, sent a requisition notice to ZEE’s board seeking an EGM from the shareholders to remove MD and CEO Punit Goenka and two other directors, and induct six new independent directors of its choice.
After declining the requisition on October 1, ZEE approached the high court and got the injunction against the investor on October 26.
Justice Patel’s order, which restrained the overseas investor from taking any action or step with regard to its requisition notice to ZEE, including calling or holding an EGM, was challenged by the investor.
