Tata Steel Ltd said on Thursday its shareholders have voted to remove Wadia Group chairman Nusli Wadia as an independent director on the steelmaker’s board.
Almost 91% of the shareholders who voted at an extraordinary general meeting of the company held on Wednesday favoured Wadia’s removal, Tata Steel said in a stock-exchange filing.
While 100% of the votes from promoter group entities including Tata Sons Ltd favoured Wadia’s removal, about 82.5% of the institutional public shareholders and 84.5% of the public shareholders also supported the move.
The shareholder vote came after Wadia opposed the removal of Cyrus Mistry from Tata Steel and filed a Rs 3,000-crore defamation suit against Tata Sons and its interim chairman Ratan Tata.
The lawsuit followed the notices Wadia had sent to Tata Sons after his removal from the post of director from Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Tata Chemicals. Tata Sons had earlier alleged that Wadia was “galvanizing†other independent directors against the group.
Tata Sons had, in October, abruptly ousted Mistry from the chairman’s post. Tata Group has insinuated that Wadia, a long-time friend of Ratan Tata and the Mistry family, is siding with Mistry in the face-off.
Mistry resigned from all listed Tata Group companies, including Tata Steel, on Monday. On Tuesday, he took the battle against Tata Sons and Ratan Tata to the National Company Law Tribunal.
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