Cyrus Mistry, who was reinstated as executive chairman of Tata Sons and three other group companies last week, is unlikely to take up a board position at any of these companies, it was reported on Thursday.
Mistry will likely appoint nominee directors to the board, who would enforce best corporate governance practices, a report in Business Standard said.
In a big win for Mistry, National Company Law Tribunal (NCLAT) on December 18 restored him as executive chairman of Tata Sons and ruled that appointment of N Chandrasekaran as the head of the holding company of salt-to-software conglomerate was illegal.
Mistry, a scion of wealthy Shapoorji Pallonji family, was in a coup removed as Chairman of Tata Sons in October 2016. He was the sixth chairman of Tata Sons and had taken over in 2012 after Ratan Tata. He was later also removed as director on board of Tata Sons.
However, Mistry and Tata family patriarch Ratan Tata had reportedly falling out over key investment decisions, including manufacturing of world's cheapest car Nano.
The news broke during the fag end of market hours on Wednesday. Shares of key Tata group companies – Tata Motors slipped 3.05 per cent to Rs 174.70 on the BSE, while that of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) ended 0.07 per cent higher at Rs 2,167.25 and Tata Steel settled 1.16 per cent higher at Rs 444.60 on Wednesday.
Mistry, whose family owns 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons, challenged his removal in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The case of oppression and mismanagement against Tata Sons and 20 others, including Ratan Tata, filed by Mistry family entities - Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments - were however in March 2017 dismissed by the NCLT ruling that they were not eligible to pursue the allegations.
Section 244 of the Companies Act, 2013 allows a shareholder of a company to bring an oppression and mismanagement case against the firm if it holds not less than one-tenth of the issued share capital.
On appeal, the Cyrus Mistry firms had secured a partial win at the NCLAT, which waived the 10 per cent shareholding requirement but remitted the matter to the NCLT.
In July last year, the NCLT rejected Mistry's petition to reinstate him and found no merit in his allegations of operational mismanagement and oppression of minority shareholders.
Mistry had approached the appellate tribunal against the verdict of Mumbai NCLT. The NCLAT had reserved its judgment after completion of arguments from both sides in July this year. The judgment was pronounced by a two-judge bench headed by Justice S J Mukhopadhyay on Wednesday.
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