The Tatas in the Supreme Court has opposed as "nonsense" the Shapoorji Pallonji Group's proposal that its 18.37 percent stake in the Tata Sons, which it claims to be worth Rs 1.75 lakh crore, be swapped with the shares in the Tata group's listed companies.
The share-swap separation proposal of the SP group was rejected by the Tata group before a bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde which is hearing the final arguments on the cross-appeals filed by Tata Sons and Cyrus Investments against appellate tribunal NCLAT's order.
The NCLAT had restored Cyrus Mistry as the executive chairman of the over USD 100 billion salt-to-software Tata conglomerate. The SP group is seeking pro-rata shares in Tata group's listed companies in lieu of its 18.37 stake in Tata Sons Private Ltd (TSPL), the holding company of group firms. "It is nonsense. This kind of relief cannot be granted," senior advocate Harish Salve told the bench, which also comprised Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.
He said that accepting such an offer could spill over to other Tata group's listed firms where the SP group would be again holding minority stakes. On the third day of the hearing, senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for Cyrus Investment, commenced submissions after Salve concluded his arguments. Sundaram referred to legal provisions and said, "The whole conduct by which Tata Sons was made a private limited company showed that minority shareholders (SP group) was being sidelined". "The act of converting the company from public to private was to prejudice me because the protection afforded by virtue of being public were taken away," he said.
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