Tata Sons calls for extraordinary general meeting on February 6 to remove Cyrus Mistry as director
Officials said the decision has been taken to ensure the confidentiality of board decisions.
Tata Sons on Friday said it will hold an extraordinary general meeting on February 6 to remove former chairperson Cyrus Mistry as the conglomerate’s board director. Shapoorji Pallonji, a Mistry family-promoted company owns the conglomerate’s single largest shareholder stake of 18.45%. The move is the latest development in the Tata Sons-Mistry dispute that began when the former chairperson was ousted in October 2016.
The Tata Sons statement said, “Mistry has made certain unsubstantiated allegations, which cast aspersions on the Tata group as a whole. Internal communications were made public. Mistry’s conduct has caused harm to the Tata group and its stakeholders.”
Officials said the decision was taken to ensure the confidentiality of board decisions, Mint reported. Mistry’s office refused to comment on the meeting’s announcement, the business daily said.
On December 19, 2016, Mistry had decided to resign from all Tata Group companies, saying it was time to “be more incisive in securing the best interest of the Tata Group”. He had said that Ratan Tata staged “an illegal coup” on October 24, the day he was sacked from his post in the company. In December, he had said he would remain the conglomerate’s director “as long as they [Tata Sons] keep me.”
Mistry has been in a widely publicised battle with the Tata camp since he was stripped of his chairmanship. Since then, he has been removed from the board of directors from a number of operating companies under the Tata Group, including Tata Steel, Tata Industries, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Teleservices.
On December 20, two firms controlled by Mistry’s family – Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments – had sued Tata Sons. In their petition filed in the National Company Law Tribunal, they had accused Tata Sons of bad practices, oppression and mismanagement. The Mumbai court has directed the companies to submit documented proof of the allegations.