Tata Motors to call EGM to sack Mistry, Wadia

Taking a cue from Tata Consultancy Services and Indian Hotels Company Ltd, Tata Motors has convened an extra ordinary general meeting of shareholders to sack its chairman Cyrus Mistry and one of its senior independent directors, Nusli Wadia.

In a notice to the stock exchanges, Tata Motors said it has received a notice from Tata Sons, with 26.51% stake for convening an Extraordinary General Meeting of the company for considering and passing resolutions for the removal of Cyrus P Mistry and Nusli N Wadia, directors of the company under Section 169 of the Companies Act.

The board of Tata Motors is meeting on Monday.

In the board meeting held yesterday of Tata Chemicals, Wadia supported Mistry thus taking on his old friend Ratan Tata who ousted Mistry in Tata Sons on October 24th. Wadia, who is chairman of Nomination and Remuneration Committee of Tata Chem, Tata Steel and Tata Motors and has given good report on Mistry's performance and hence has decided against opposing him, said a director on Tata Chem board.

Earlier in the day, Bhaskar Bhat, a nominee of the Tata group, resigned from Tata Chemicals board saying that the company is facing threat from on account of loss of confidence in Chairman Cyrus Mistry by the company’s promoter Tata Sons Limited.

“I just read the statement by the independent directors on the BSE site. “The contents of the as well as the spirit of the statement completely dilutes the views I expressed in the board meeting today especially regarding the threat the company faces on account of loss of confidence of the promoter in the Chairman of the company. Several important issues I expressed seem to have been compleltey ignored,” he said in a statement.

Bhat’s resignation is to put pressure on Mistry so that the latter can resign from various listed companies of the Tata group, sources said.

Yesterday, the independent directors of Tata Chemicals backed Mistry and expressed their full support to Mistry. The support to Mistry came within a week of the independent directors of Indian Hotels Co Ltd supporting Mistry. The independent directors have said Tata Sons is hanging Mistry’s head for the bad acquisitions made by Ratan Tata who has become the Interim Chairman of Tata group by ousting Mistry on October 24th.