The Bombay High Court has allowed Invesco’s appeal against Zee Injunction which restricts Invesco from calling a shareholder meeting to remove Zee’s Managing Director & Chief Executive Punit Goenka.
A division bench quashed and set aside the single bench order of October 2021 which was granted in favour of Zee and restrains Invesco from holding an EGM.
“The appeal is allowed. The single bench order is quashed and set aside. We have held that the requisition notice (sent by Invesco to Zee) is neither illegal nor incapable of being set aside,” the court observed.
The bench also said it has quashed all the observations made by the single bench in its order.
The points raised by Invesco are, The High court did not have sufficient jurisdiction under company law to grant a stay on the EGM requisition. It’s the company law tribunal that is empowered to decide on this matter. Invesco further said that Shareholders have an absolute right to call an EGM, Invesco had argued. The right of the shareholders to remove directors at a requisitioned general meeting is not affected by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Invesco and its affiliate OFI Global had been involved in a legal tussle with ZEEL for the last 6 months which began with the latter’s demand on holding an Extraordinary General Meeting to remove Managing Director & Chief Executive Punit Goenka and appoint six other additional directors on the board.
The order from Bombay HC will further delay the Zee/Sony merger process. Reportedly, the operation of the Bombay HC order will be effective after three weeks and ZEEL may seek relief by challenging the order before the apex court.
