A division bench of Delhi high court has dismissed the appeal against an order allowing IDBI Trusteeship to sell pledged shares of Zee Entertainment and Dish TV.
The Essel Group had pledged shares of the two companies with IDBI Trusteeship as a collateral against non-convertible debentures issued by Essel Infraprojects Ltd. These debentures were redeemable by 22 May, 2020.
When Essel Infraprojects failed to redeem the debentures, the IDBI Trusteeship had issued notices of invocation on the share pledge agreements.
The companies were asked pay ₹616 crore as the outstanding amount, along with default interest.
The three Essel group companies had approached the Delhi high court, challenging the sale but a single-judge bench had dismissed the plea on May 3.
In their appeal, the companies had submitted that the single judge bench “had not considered the extraordinary situation prevailing due to the pandemic and had failed to factor in the consequent difficulties of liquidity that companies were facing and which hardship the RBI had addressed by issuing moratorium for repayment.”
The counsel for IDBI Trusteeship Services Limited argued that single-judge bench had rightly rejected the argument of the appellants that any change in the share holding pattern had to be first approved by the government. In short, it was submitted by the counsel “that the appellants were seeking something from the Court which was not permissible either under law or under contract and that no equities were available to the appellants.”
