MUMBAI: Digging in his heels after being ousted as Chairman of Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry plans to continue as Chairman of all Tata group firms, including Tata Steel, TCS and Tata Motors. According to sources close to Mistry, he has no plans to quit as Chairman of these firms.
"He will discharge his fiduciary duty as required by law in all his positions in the Tata group," a source close to Mistry said. Tata Sons is the main holding company of the group. The Tata group has been hoping that Mistry will step down from the positions he occupies in the group firms after being replaced as Chairman on October 24.
At present, he is the Chairman of Tata companies such as Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Indian Hotels Co Ltd (IHCL), Tata Power Company, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Chemicals, Tata Industries and Tata Teleservices. Mistry is slated to chair the upcoming board meetings of IHCL and Tata Chemicals on November 4 and 10 respectively to approve quarterly results.
In a surprise move, Tata Sons board had ousted Mistry as Chairman of the company and replaced him with Ratan Tata as interim Chairman. The group has said it would find a successor within four months. A day after Mistry wrote a letter to the board members of Tata Sons levelling a series of allegations against Ratan Tata and contended that he was pushed in to a position of "lame duck" chairman and changes in decision making process created alternate power centres in Tata group. Since then there has been a continuing war of words between Mistry and the Tatas.
On Monday, in a letter to group employees, Tata had termed the decision to replace Mistry as a well-considered but difficult and a serious one which was "absolutely necessary for the future success of the Tata Group".