Bombay High Court resumes hearing on Zee-Invesco boardroom battle

The Bombay High Court began hearings on Monday in the case brought by US investment company Invesco, which is contesting an order of the same court's single judge bench against Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE).

In November of last year, Invesco, ZEE's largest shareholder, filed an appeal with the high court's division bench against Justice GS Patel's injunction ruling.

In its appeal, Invesco argued that, under Section 430 of the Companies Act, 2013, the high court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter and that the National Company Law Institution (NCLT) was the proper tribunal to hear it.

Chenoy argued, "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. 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 civil court had complete authority over the matter, according to ZEE's senior counsel Aspi Chenoy, because Section 430 did not apply in this case.

The hearing of Invesco's appeal has been set for Tuesday by a division bench of justices S J Kathawala and Milind Jadhav.

On September 11, 2016, Invesco, through its Invesco Developing Markets Fund and OFI Global China Fund LLC, sent a requisition notice to ZEE's board of directors, requesting an EGM from shareholders to remove MD and CEO Punit Goenka and two other directors, and induct six new independent directors of its choosing.

ZEE went to the high court after denying the request on October 1 and was granted an injunction against the investor on October 26.

The investor appealed Justice Patel's ruling, which barred the foreign investor from taking any action or measure in relation to its demand notice to ZEE, including calling or convening an EGM.