Cyrus Mistry could be sacked as Tata Power chairman on December 26

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Come December 26 and Tata Power could become the fourth Tata firm to sack Cyrus Mistry as the chairman/director of the company.

After Tata Sons removed Mistry as the chairman of the company on October 24, Tata Steel and Tata Global Beverages have also removed him as the head of the firm.

Despite being removed as chairman from these three firms, Mistry continues to be the head of Tata Power.

Tata Sons, the company's promoter with 31.05 percent stake, had asked Tata Power to convene an EGM for passing a resolution for removal of Mistry as a director from the board.

So, Tata Power on Tuesday called extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on December 26 to seek shareholders' approval to remove Cyrus Mistry as a director of the largest integrated private power company in the country.

The company has 12 directors, out of which six are independent.

Apart from Mistry, the directors on the Tata Power board are: Homiar S Vachha, Nawshir H Mirza, Deepak M Satwalekar, Ashok K Basu, Pravin H Kutumbe, Sandhya S Kudtarkar, Anjali Bansal, Vibha Padalkar, Sanjay Bhandarkar, Anil Sardana (managing director and CEO), and Ashok S Sethi.

Of these, Vachha, Mirza, Bansal, Satwalekar, Padalkar and Bhandarkar are independent directors.

In a BSE filing, Tata Power informed that the board, at its meeting held today, decided to convene the EGM to consider the removal of Mistry from the board.

The EGM will be held on December 26 in Mumbai.

Last month, Mistry was unceremoniously removed as the chairman of Tata Sons and replaced by his predecessor Ratan Tata in the interim, triggering a confrontation between the single-largest shareholder and the Tatas.

Returning to Tata Sons after the abrupt removal of Mistry, Ratan Tata has moved quickly to consolidate his grip over the USD 103 billion salt-to-software group by seeking to remove the ousted chairman from boards of group firms.

Among the Tata group companies, TCS has called an EGM on December 13, while Indian Hotels has convened it on December 20. The other group companies which will hold similar EGMs, include Tata Motors on December 22, Tata Steel on December 21 and Tata Chemicals on December 23.

One of the independent directors told PTI that the board meeting was routine in nature and did not take up any particular resolution on removing Mistry.

But he was quick to add that for the company everything depends on what Tata Sons decides especially on the management aspects.

A statement from the Mistry camp said: "Mistry chaired today's board meeting of Tata Power without any contest."

The statement did not elaborate, nor did the Tata Group, on the meeting.

With PTI Inputs