Published On : Fri, Feb 23rd, 2024
By Nagpur Today Nagpur News

Byju’s EGM begins, founder Raveendran Byju MIA

An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of Byju’s shareholders got underway on Friday to vote on a resolution brought by some investors to ouster founder CEO Byju Raveendran and his family over alleged “mismanagement and failures”.

Raveendran and his family stayed away from the EGM, calling it “procedurally invalid.”

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Ahead of the EGM, a group of four investors of Byju’s on Thursday evening filed an oppression and mismanagement suit against the management of the company in the Bengaluru bench of the NCLT, seeking declaring of founders, including CEO Byju Raveendran, as unfit to run the company, appointment of a new board, declaring the just-concluded rights issue as void and a forensic audit of accounts.

Sources with direct knowledge of the matter said the EGM was to start at 0930 hours on Friday morning but was delayed for almost an hour as some 200 people, some of them are Byju’s employees, sought to join the virtual meet.

Only after due verification were the investors led in, they said, adding that some 40 people representing the investors were allowed in and would vote on the resolution moved by some investors.

However, the outcome of the vote at the EGM will not be applicable until March 13, when the Karnataka High Court will next hear Raveendran’s plea challenging the move by certain investors. The High Court on Wednesday refused to stay the EGM, called by shareholders collectively holding more than 32 per cent stake in Byju’s. Raveendran and family own 26.3 per cent in the company.

The EGM notice calls for the ouster of the current board of Think & Learn, the firm that operates Byju’s, composed of Raveendran, his wife and co-founder Divya Gokulnath, and his brother Riju Raveendran. Byju Raveendran on his part wrote to shareholders for the second time in a week saying the EGM was “procedurally invalid, contractually in contravention” articles of association and shareholder agreement, “legally on the wrong side of the Companies Act, 2013, and fundamentally designed and timed to create a media circus around it”.

Sources said he wrote that the investors seeking his ouster, have assumed the roles of judge, jury, and executioner.

He quoted the Wednesday order by Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde of the Karnataka High Court and said: “The decision, if any, taken by the shareholders of Byju’s in the EGM scheduled on February 23 shall not be given effect till the next date of hearing.”

He went on to add that he was confident of getting a favourable final verdict. Calling the EGM invalid, he said neither he nor any other board member (the others being his wife and brother) would attend the meeting.

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