The development comes a day after the Mumbai NCLT directed Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) to file its response in two days in a plea filed by the company’s largest shareholder Invesco.
“ZEE has filed a plea to get an extension of time to file its response at NCLT and also wants appellate tribunal’s direction to stay on the hearing at the tribunal until this petition gets decided,” said two people aware of the development. “We are expecting NCLAT to hear the petition tomorrow itself.”
On Tuesday, the division bench led by Bhaskara Pantula Mohan and Narender Kumar Bhola had given time till Friday to Zee’s lawyers to file their response in the petition of its offshore shareholders and posted the matter for further hearing to October 7.
The bench had given two days time, while Zee was seeking few more days to file its response in the matter. Now, the company has moved to the appellate tribunal to get an extension to file its response in NCLT.
The offshore shareholder, which owns a 17.88% stake in the company, is seeking the tribunal’s intervention to direct the board of ZEE to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to remove the MD and CEO Punit Goenka from the board and induct six new independent directors.
Law firm Dhruve Liladhar & Co is representing Invesco and OFI Global China Fund in this case, while law firms Trilegal and the Economic Laws Practice (ELP) are representing ZEE and Goenka.
So far, Navroz Seervai, senior advocate appearing for ZEE has argued that (Invesco’s) application is not maintainable and needs to be dismissed.
“The (Invesco’s) petition is seeking ad-interim relief as its final relief, which can’t be granted without the full hearing or at the interim stage,” argued Seervai. “Also, the court or tribunal can’t grant an interim relief that alters the status quo.
