3 Tata Steel directors ask Wadia to drop resolution to back Mistry

Mallika Srinivasan, O P Bhatt and Andrew Robb are the independent directors

In a setback to the Mistry camp, three independent directors on the board of Tata Steel, Mallika Srinivasan, O P Bhatt and Andrew Robb forced senior independent director Nusli Wadia to drop the resolution to back Chairman Cyrus Mistry in a stormy board meeting held at Bombay House on Friday.

The board met amid a statement to the stock exchanges that Tata Sons, a principal shareholder of Tata Steel, requesting the board to convene an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to remove Mistry and Wadia as directors.

In the board meet on Friday, the three directors were vocal about the goings-on in the company and asked the board to look ahead instead of looking back.  Mallika is the wife of Venu Srinivasan, chairman of TVS Group and a director of Tata Sons, who voted in favour of removing Mistry from the Tata Sons board in its October 24 meeting. Bhatt is former State Bank of India chairman, while Robb was a director in Corus Steel when Tata took it over in 2007.

The independent directors of Indian Hotels and Tata Chemicals had earlier supported Mistry and came out with statements to the shareholders backing Mistry. The other independent directors Subodh Bhargava and J Scharaven remained non-committal.

Letter from the Tata Workers’ Union (TWU) was also placed before the board. The union has come out in support of the promoters. The TWU letter said they were proud to be a Tata company. The meeting was scheduled to start at 11 am but started around noon and went on till 5 pm.

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