Fi Nominee Directors Yet To Be Questioned

The directorate has yet to make up its mind on calling the FI nominees for interrogation. This was stated by ED deputy director K K Kabirpanthi at a press conference in Calcutta yesterday.

ED sources said the FI nominees may survive the entire episode without being called to answer enforcement queries on Fera violations by ITC.

This is despite the fact that the directorate sleuths have expressed the desire to question the other set of non-executive directors on board of ITC Ltd, the nominees of the British parent company, BAT Plc.

The financial institution nominees on the board of ITC Ltd are Tapan Ganguli of Industrial Finance Corporation of India, Subrata Mukherji of Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India, P V Narasimham of Industrial Development Bank of India, K P Narasimhan of LIC and Basudeb Sen of UTI.

 

The FIs have backed the previous board structures of ITC. The FIs together hold the largest percentage of shares in the firm.

There is much speculation on what their stand will be in the next few weeks on the issue of greater BAT control on the ITC board, especially if the present management is discredited beyond repair.

The BAT nominees are believed to have met top officials of financial institutions in Mumbai yesterday including the top brass of the Industrial Development Bank of India, one of the major shareholders.

However, nothing could be gleaned from the results of the talks. Both BAT and FI sources are tightlipped on the issue.

With the arrival of BAT nominees in India, it is believed the financial institutions will be under renewed pressure to take a stand on the issue of continuation of the existing management structure.