Shivani Thakur
Published on: June 19, 2022 at 14:45 IST
The Bombay High Court dismissed a Petition filed by the founder of India Pvt Ltd to prevent Yes Bank, a shareholder in DishTV, from exercising its rights, including voting rights over the bank’s shares.
DishTV said last month that an EGM would be held to ratify and pass a resolution re-appointing the managing director, a full-time director, and a non-executive independent director.
An interim application was filed in a suit wherein World Crest has sought itself to be declared as owners of over 440 million shares of DishTV.
Five additional companies had pledged the relevant shares in favour of Catalyst Trusteeship, a security trustee, to secure the term loans issued by the bank to them, according to Yes Bank.
Plaintiff World Crest claimed that it was able to facilitate the pledge of suit shares as security with Catalyst because defendants, including the bank, assured and represented that the shares would remain World Crest’s “absolute property” at all times unless they were sold due to default.
The DishTV promoter apprehended that the bank will seek to vote on the suit shares over which only the former had entitlement rights, and therefore sought a restraining order
Yes Bank objected to the application, claiming that it is allowed to exercise voting rights and has done so in the past, arguing that the balance of convenience does not favour the applicant.
“The applicant (World Crest) has not made out a prima facie case nor is the balance of convenience favouring grant of relief. No irreparable harm is likely to be caused to the plaintiff/applicant. There is no occasion to once again consider the grant of relief… Accordingly, ad-interim relief is refused,” the Bench held. The Court also ordered the defendants, including the bank, to file any answers to the pending litigation within four weeks, and World Crest to file its reply two weeks later.
