Byju’s CEO Raveendran in a letter to employees on Saturday February 24 said that he remains in his position, the management remains unchanged, and the board remains the same. It is “business as usual” at BYJU’S, he said.
The note to employees assumes significance as it comes after Byju's shareholders on February 23
voted for removing Founder-CEO Raveendran and his family from the board over alleged "mismanagement and failures" at what was once India's hottest tech startup.
Calling the EGM a ‘farce’, “Raveendran alleged that a lot of essential rules were "violated" at Friday's Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).
"This means that whatever was decided in that meeting does not count, because it didn't stick to the established rules... It is crucial for everyone to understand the specific issues that make this EGM a farce," he wrote.
Raveendran said he firmly believes that the truth will inevitably prevail, despite the "relentless trial by the media".
Outlining what he claimed were "key discrepancies" at the EGM, he said the meeting was convened without following the proper procedure set out by the law and the company's Articles of Association.
"To pass any resolution the meeting needs to have a proper quorum, a set of people who are mandatory. Our articles are clear on the quorum requiring the presence of at least one founder director. Consequently, any resolutions taken at the meeting are not enforceable as per law," he said.
He also stated, "The claims made by a small group of select minority shareholders that they have unanimously passed the resolution in the EGM is completely wrong. Only 35 out of 170 shareholders voted in favour of the resolution."
Byju's Founder CEO Raveendran Byju, his wife and brother – the only three members on the company board as of now –
stayed away from the EGM called by a group of six investors, who collectively hold more than 32% in Think & Learn (T&L), the firm that operates online tuition platform Byju's, the PTI reported.
At the end, more than 60% of the shareholders voted in favour of all the seven resolutions, which included removing the current management, reconfiguration of the board and a third party forensic investigation into acquisitions by the company, sources close to the investors told PTI. However, sources close to Byju's put the number at 47% on Friday.
Prosus – one of the six investors who had called the EGM – In a statement on Friday said, "shareholders unanimously passed all resolutions put forward for vote".
With inputs from PTI.
(Edited by : Priyanka Deshpande)
