The second round in the battle between Rajendra Lodha and the Birla family has gone to the Lodha camp, in this case on the issue of the constitution of the board of Birla Corporation Ltd, the M P Birla group flagship.
The Company Law Board, on Thursday, declared the results of the poll taken on the items relating to the appointment of R S Lodha, P Majumdar and Vikram Swarup and declared all three elected as directors at the annual general meeting of the Birla Corporation held in Kolkata on September 15, 2004.
Birla vs Lodha: War over a will
CLB took up the matter relating to the petition filed by some shareholders under Section 397 and 398 of the Companies Act, 1956. Balasubramanian, chairman of the Company Law Board, declared today that Lodha, Majumder and Swarup were all elected directors with 99.99 per cent votes cast in their favour.
Announcement of the results regarding the resolutions in respect of the election of Lodha and the other two as directors at the meeting held on September 15, 2004, had been restrained by an interim order on September 14, 2004, passed by CLB on an application by minority shareholders.
Birla Corp had filed a miscellaneous interim application with CLB challenging the petition as being mala fide and an abuse of the process of law.
Birla Corp said most of the shareholders behind the application were employees or nominees of the B K Birla group who had recently got shares transferred to their names just for the purposes of filing the application before CLB.
The total holding of such shareholders was 0.001 per cent of the capital of the company.
