NCLT to hear investors' oppression and mismanagement plea against Byju's tomorrow

The investors have filed a plea against 12 entities and persons including the company's founder Byju Ravindran, his wife Divya Gokulnath and his brother Riju Raveendran.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has listed an oppression and mismanagement plea filed by four investors against edtech company Byju's on February 27.

The plea will be heard by a bench of judicial member K. Biswal and technical member Manoj Kumar Dubey. This is the fifth plea filed against Byju's in NCLT and fourth filed in 2024.

Four investors, who moved NCLT against Byju's include MIH Edtech Investments B.V, Peak XV Partners Investments IV, Peak XV Partners Investments V, Sofina S.A. and General Atlantic Singapore TL Pte. Ltd. According to the NCLT's website, the investors have filed a plea against 12 entities and persons including the company's founder Byju Ravindran, his wife Divya Gokulnath and his brother Riju Raveendran.

The investors moved the NCLT to declare founders as unfit to run the company, appoint a new board, declare the rights issue as void, conduct a forensic audit, among other reliefs, said investor sources. The plea was moved around the time another bunch of investors called for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

At the EGM held on February 23, investors like  Prosus, General Atlantic and Peak XV voted to fire Raveendran.  Investor sources told Moneycontrol that shareholders of about 60 percent stake in Byju's voted in favour of the resolutions, but company sources argued that those in favour of the resolutions only hold about 47 percent of the shares.

Raveendran, his wife and brother — the only board members — decided to skip, investors passed resolutions to overhaul the embattled education platform's leadership, reconstitute the board and start a forensic probe into alleged governance breaches.

However, they cannot implement this resolution after Karnataka HC passed an order asking Byju’s shareholders not to bring in effect any resolutions expected to be passed during the.

Other NCLT pleas against Byju's:

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), France-based Teleperformance Business Services, and digital marketing firm Surfer Technologies have all filed separate insolvency pleas against Byju's. The NCLT has issued notice in all the insolvency petitions filed against the ed tech giant.

US based non-bank loan agency Glas Trust Company, is the administrative agent for the lenders and collateral agent for the secured parties, has also filed an insolvency plea against the company. The company represents foreign lenders, who collectively extended more than 85 percent of Byju’s $1.2-billion lending.