Section of VV Minerals family moves court seeking arbitration

CHENNAI: The rift between S Vaikundarajan, managing partner of mines and minerals major ‘VV Minerals’ and his younger brother S Jagadeesan, one of the partners of the company, over the supremacy of the firm, has widened and come to the fore with the latter moving the Madras High Court to resolve the issues through arbitration proceedings.

Original petitions under Sec. 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, have been filed in the High Court in April end and there were hearings on the plea in May middle during vacation court and subsequently on June 6 and 19. As Vaikundarajan has not filed a counter yet, the matter remains posted before Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana for hearing on July 10.

The petitions prayed for the appointment of an arbitrator, most preferably, Justice Shivraj V Patil, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, who had functioned as an arbitrator on an earlier occasion too, to decide the disputes that have arisen between them under the terms of the agreements entered into on various dates.
In their petitions, Jagadeesan and his son J Muthurajan and other family members, alleged that his elder brother Vaikundarajan, who was at the helm of the affairs of V V Minerals and other sister concerns, including News 7, a Tamil TV channel, has breached the trust they have placed on him, siphoned off the profits derived out of V V Minerals and purchased properties in his and in the names of his family members. The petitioners claimed that they trusted Vaikundarajan, the eldest brother, would act in the best interest of the companies as well as the families. However, he acted in a manner not strengthening the family bond, on the other hand, heading towards a split.

In view of the fact that Vaikundarajan and Co was not interested to settle the matter amicably, the petitioners decided to invoke the arbitration clause and approached Justice Shivraj Patil again for his consent. Upon obtaining the same, the petitioners had issued a notice through their counsel on March 28, 2019, calling upon Vaikundarajan & Co, to agree to the nomination of the judge as the sole arbitrator to decide the issues that had arisen between them under the partnership deeds.

While so, to their shock and dismay, Vaikundarajan replied through his counsel on April 22, 2019, that both the parties had agreed to the conciliation of one S Ganesan, who happened to be their relative, with regard to the division of properties and businesses and that a settlement had fructified and that the same had been reduced in writing in the name of ‘Kaithadi Partition Deed’ on December 31, 2018, which had become final and binding on both the parties.

The petitioners claimed that they had affixed their signatures in the Deed, running to several hundred pages, without knowing the contents and their importance, that too, in a very short time, trusting that the ‘big brother’ would not indulge in any activity detrimental to their interest and well being. Hence, the present petitions, to resolve the disputes by Justice Shivraj Patil, as the sole arbitrator.