Tata-Cyrus Mistry case: Supreme Court To Hear Review Plea Against Tatas On March 9

Tata-Mistry Case: Cyrus Mistry was the sixth chairman of Tata Sons and was removed from the position in October 2016.

The former chairman of Tata Group, Cyrus Mistry (File photo: AFP)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear a review petition of the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group against the removal of Cyrus Mistry as Tata Sons Ltd chairman on March 9.

The Supreme Court has decided that this time the hearing will be held in open court. A bench led by CJI NV Ramana, Justice AS Bopanna, and Justice V Ramasubramanian considered it on February 15. 

"Applications seeking exemption from filing affidavits are allowed. Applications seeking oral hearing of the Review Petitions are allowed. List the Review Petitions on Wednesday, the 9th March 2022," said the apex court in its February 15 order.

Justice Ramasubramanian, in his dissenting opinion, said: "With utmost respect, I regret my inability to agree with the order. I have carefully gone through the Review Petitions and I do not find any valid ground to review the judgment. The grounds raised in the Review Petitions do not fall within the parameters of a review and hence the applications seeking oral hearing deserve to be dismissed."

In the decision passed on March 26 last year, the top court said: "We find all the questions of law are liable to be answered in favour of the appellants (Tata Group) and the appeals filed by the Tata Group are liable to be allowed and Shapoorji Pallonji group is liable to be dismissed."

On November 10, 2016, Tata Sons blamed Mistry for not performing as expected and that Tata Sons suffered losses under his supervision.

"The Directors of Tata Sons are primarily concerned with the results of Tata Sons and their duty to all its shareholders, particularly, the Tata Trusts, who holds 66 per cent of the equity capital. Mr. Cyrus P. Mistry has been the Executive Vice-Chairman (for one year) and Executive Chairman for nearly four years now – a period long enough to show results in Tata Sons itself, which was his primary executive responsibility," said a statement from Tata Sons.

Cyrus Mistry was the sixth chairman of Tata Sons and was removed from the position in October 2016. After Ratan Tata, he took over as the chairman in 2012. Mistry was the second person from outside the Tata family to become the chairman in the group's 150-year long history.