Supreme Court rejects review plea against judgement on removal of Cyrus Mistry from Tata Group

The bench ordered the deletion of certain remarks made against Cyrus Mistry in the March 2021 verdict

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected review petitions filed by Cyrus Investments Pvt Ltd and Sterling Investments Pvt Ltd against the top court's March 26, 2021 judgment, which upheld Tata group's decision to remove Cyrus Mistry as executive chairman of Tata Sons in 2016 and director on the board of the company.

A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian dismissed the plea, saying review petitions are not entertained.

Senior advocates C A Sundaram and Shyam Divan asked the court to reconsider the judgement on behalf of Shapoorji Pallonji Group companies.

Rejecting their plea, the top court, however, agreed to expunge certain remarks made against Mistry.

But it objected to a statement made in the application on its judgment.

The bench told the counsel representing Mistry, to withdraw such a statement. The counsel replied that there was no intention to hurt the judges and agreed to withdraw the statement.

The bench then said, "We'll confer and delete some sentences”.

After the proceedings, Ratan Tata, in a statement said, “we would like to express our grateful appreciation of the judgement passed and upheld by the Supreme Court today. It reinforces the value systems and ethics of our judiciary”.

In February, the bench by a majority view of 2:1, agreed to consider the review petition filed by the Mistry's group in open court.

Of the three-judge, Justice Ramasubramaian has dissented with this February 15 order to consider review petition.

On March 26, 2021, the court had set aside the order of December 18, 2019 by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) reinstating Mistry as chairman of the Tata Sons.