Vote with 'conscience', Nusli Wadia tells Tata Motors' shareholders

Wadia said he chose not to attend the company's EGM on Thursday as the meetings of other Tata companies have been inappropriately and shamefully stage managed.

New Delhi, Dec 22: Ahead of the Tata Motors Extra-ordinary General Meeting (EGM) on Thursday, industrialist Nusli Wadia, an independent director of the company, has written a letter to its shareholders asking them to vote with their "conscience" and for what is right.

"It is in your hands to vote with your conscience for what is right for your company and more important for the institution of independent directors," Wadia said in his letter on Wednesday.

Over 90 per cent shareholders of Tata Steel had already voted to remove Wadia as an independent Director of the company in an EGM that took place on Wednesday. He also said he has chosen not to attend the company's EGM on Thursday as the meetings of other Tata companies have been "inappropriately and shamefully stage managed".

"What is at stake now is not whether I am removed or not but the fate of the very institution of the independent director that has been created in law and by SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) to safeguard the interests of all stakeholders," he added.

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 contradiction that needs to be and must be addressed urgently, Wadia said.

"I have forwarded this letter to the company secretary to read it out to you, my dear shareholders. It is for him and the Board to decide whether they wish to allow him (Ratan Tata) to do so," he added.

IANS