Mistry skips Tata Sons' board meeting

A board room confrontation between Tata Sons interim Chairman Ratan Tata and ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry was averted on Thursday with the latter skipping the meeting of the board at Bombay House here.

The development was confirmed by one of the board members, Vijay Singh, after the board meeting.

Two other board members, Farida Khambata and Ralf Speth, did not attend the meet.

The Tata Sons Board comprises Ratan Tata, Ishaat Hussain, Cyrus P. Mistry, Vijay Singh, Nitin Nohria, Ronen Sen, Farida Khambata, Venu Srinivasan, Ajay Piramal, Amit Chandra, Ralf Speth and N. Chandrasekaran.

Earlier in the day, Mistry also skipped the board meeting of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

After the board meet, the industrial conglomerate's IT subsidiary informed the BSE that its board of directors has decided to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to pass a resolution for removal of Mistry as a director of the company.

The EGM will be held on Tuesday, December 13, 2016.

Last week, TCS issued a special notice under Section 169 (read with Section 115) of the Companies Act, 2013, and made a requisition for an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to consider Mistry's removal as a director of TCS.

TCS replaced Mistry as its Chairman and appointed Ishaat Hussain as the new Chairman of the board of directors of the company with immediate effect.

Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group companies, removed Mistry, 48, as its Chairman last month and reinstated Ratan Tata in an interim capacity.

The holding arm for the group has said that Mistry had lost the confidence of the board due to several factors and that the trustees were increasingly concerned with the growing trust deficit.

Last week, Tata Sons in a nine-page statement said the ousted Chairman should resign from all group companies and deplored the manner in which Mistry has sought the support of independent directors of Indian Hotels to continue as its Chairman.

--IANS

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