SC dismisses of petition seeking review of Tata-Mistry verdict

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a plea of the Sapoorji Pallonji (SP) group firms seeking a review of the 2021 verdict which had upheld the Tata group’s decision to remove Cyrus Mistry as the executive chairman of the Tata Sons.

The top court, however, agreed to delete certain remarks made in the 2021 judgement against Cyrus Mistry after the counsel for the SP group said that he was willing to withdraw certain paragraphs, purportedly written against the bench, from their application.

“Sorry, review (petition) is not entertained. Dismissed,” observed a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian after hearing counsel from both sides.

The plea seeking review of the judgement was sought by S P group firms, Cyrus Investments Private Ltd and Sterling Investments Private Ltd. During the hearing, the bench was irked over certain pleadings such as “the judgement is worse than a press statement” made by the SP group in its application for expunction of adverse observations in the judgement against Mistry. “That is not proper, you first withdraw (the paragraphs),” the CJI said.

Somasekharan Sundaram, the counsel for Mistry, said there was no intention to hurt the bench. “Scores are settled. We had said something, you have said something against us,” the bench said, adding that one of the observations made in the judgement would be deleted.The bench said the other side (Tata group) had no objection to Mistry’s remarks in the application. “We have the objection, the court has the objection. You have said something against the court, not the other side,” it said leading to the withdrawal of certain paragraphs by the counsel of Mistry.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the Tata group, said that the court may permit the deletion of one or a few sentences “as an act of grace” and not for the reasons given in the application of the SP group.

The SC on March 26, 2021, had set aside a NCLAT order restoring Mistry as the executive chairman of the conglomerates.