New Delhi:
In a major decision, Tata Steel Ltd members voted in favour of resolution to remove Nusli Wadia from the office of independent director with immediate effect. The members voted 90.80% to oust Wadia. The resolution was passed in the extraordinary general meeting held on Wednesday.
Wadia, who did not attend the meeting, however, asked the shareholders to vote against the proposal and continued his scathing attack on Tata Sons and criticised the group's continued steel investments in Europe.
"I have chosen not to attend the meeting as I understand that recent meetings held of other Tata companies have been inappropriately and shamefully stage-managed by the requisitionist controlling the entry into the hall, as also in the selection and choice of speakers as never before seen in Indian corporate history," he wrote to the Tata Steel shareholders.
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Lashing out at the actions of Tata Sons, he said, "What is at stake is not whether I am removed or not, but the fate of the very institution of independent director that has been created in law and by Sebi to safeguard the interests of all stakeholders. If independent directors can be removed at the whim and fancy of a promoter, then their role will be reduced to that of 'yes men'."
The ability of a promoter to remove an independent director through the brute force of its holding in an ordinary resolution on which it can vote is a serious and major dichotomy and the contradiction needs to be and must be addressed urgently, Wadia wrote.
He continued his attack on board of Tata Steel, specially drawing attention of the shareholders to the continued investments by the firm in Europe.
