On October 24 last year, Tata Sons said that its board has replaced Mistry as Chairman of Tata Sons. On February 21 this year, former head of TCS N Chandrasekaran took over as its chairman.
New Delhi : “I am being sacked” was the text message former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus P Mistry sent to his wife Rohiqa minutes after he was asked to either resign or face termination over Tata Trusts losing confidence in him for a variety of reasons. Minutes before the October 24, 2016 board meeting of Tata Sons — the holding company of the $106 billion salt-to-software conglomerate — Ratan Tata and another board member Nitin Nohria came calling on the former chairman, claims Nirmalya Kumar, who was part of the core Group Executive Council (GEC) formed by Mistry. “Nitin Nohria begins by proclaiming that ‘Cyrus as you know the relationship between you and Ratan Tata has not been working’.
“Therefore, Nohria continues, Tata Trusts have decided to move a board resolution removing Cyrus as Chairman of Tata Sons. He is offered the option of resigning or facing the resolution for his removal at the upcoming board meeting,” Kumar wrote in a blog. Ratan Tata, according to Kumar, chimes in at this stage to say he is sorry that things have reached this stage. “Cyrus Mistry calmly responds with ‘gentlemen you are free to take it up at the board meeting and I will do what I have to do’,” he wrote. Cyrus sends a text “I am being sacked” to his wife Rohiqa, before putting on his jacket and heading for the board meeting, says Kumar in his latest blog titled ‘How Cyrus Mistry was fired’.
Kumar, who is currently a professor of marketing at Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University and Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute, states that during the meeting, Mistry argued that the articles of association required a 15-day notice before a resolution.
Another Tata Trusts nominee Amit Chandra informed the board that the legal opinion obtained by the Trusts stated such a notice was not necessary. “He offered to share the opinion, but none has been to date,” said the blog. While six of the eight-member board voted in favour of the resolution two abstained.
