In a note to employees of the crisis-hit edtech major Byju's, founder CEO Byju Raveendran has asserted that it is "business as usual" at the company.
"I am writing this letter to you as the CEO of our company. Contrary to what you may have read in the media, I continue to remain CEO, the management remains unchanged, and the board remains the same," Raveendran said.
"The sun will rise again tomorrow, and we will continue our business, undeterred by the rumours and false narratives being circulated. Rest assured that I am not taking any of these allegations lying down and will challenge these illegal and prejudicial actions," Raveendran said.
Referring to the Friday's Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) wherein the shareholders of the company voted unanimously for removing the founder CEO and his family from the board, Raveendran said it was a "farce", asserting that rumours of him being fired from Byju's "have been greatly exaggerated and highly inaccurate".
The shareholders' voting comes amid alleged "mismanagement and failures" but Raveendran said the voting done in the absence of founders is invalid and ineffective.
Pointing out that rules were "violated" at Friday's EGM, he said it 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.
The Byju's founder said, "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.
"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 (representing around 45 per cent of shareholding) voted in favour of the resolution. That in itself shows the very limited support that this irrelevant meeting received," he added.
Highlighting an "overwhelming response" for the recent rights issue, he claimed, "In fact, such has been the scale of its success that even those who were sitting on the fence are now rushing to get a piece of the action. This momentum is irreversible, and our comeback is now inevitable.”
