NEW DELHI: Murugappa family scion Valli Arunachalam has served a legal notice to family members and Murugappa Group management following their denial of a board seat for her on the group’s primary holding company - Ambadi Investments Ltd (AIL).
According to Arunachalam, the family choosing to vote against her appointment was "the end of the road for an amicable settlement" and described her move to take the matter to the court as "unfortunate".
"On behalf of my mother, sister and me, I can hereby confirm that following careful and thorough deliberation and in consultation with our independent advisors, we have decided to seek legal remedies with respect to our ongoing efforts to settle my father’s will. Accordingly, we issued legal notices to the Murugappa family members, Ambadi Investments management, and other people in relation thereto," Arunachalam said in a statement on Thursday.
MV Murugappan died in 2017 leaving no male heirs. Together, Arunachalam, her sister Vellachi Murugappan and their mother MV Valli Murugappan, hold an 8.15 per cent stake in AIL, which entitles them to at least one board seat, according to Arunachalam.
She said that her attempt to sell the stake to other family members, according to her father's wishes, at 'fair value' had also not elicited a positive response. "We have taken the 'leave no stone unturned' approach to bring about an amicable settlement... Each entreaty has been met with some combination of silence, combativeness, false assurances, and delay tactics," rued the 59-year-old nuclear scientist, who is based in New York.
Alleging the family’s tactics as a "robe to conceal its regressive gender bias", Arunachalam said she no longer had any confidence that their stake in the business will be safeguarded by the rest of the family.
"Given how the Murugappa family has treated our family branch over the past three years, we have no confidence that our substantial stake in the family business will be safeguarded by them. Perhaps most confounding to us is that the family has attempted to project their stand as principled and righteous," she added.
On September 22, Arunachalam's claim to a board position was put to vote at the annual general meeting (AGM) of AIL. However, nearly 91 per cent of the shareholders rejected her appointment.
The elder daughter of Murugappan also pointed out that the Murugappa family has not provided any "logical or legally valid" explanation for subordinating her family till date. "We recognize that our efforts have broader implications, especially with respect to gender equality and social parity… We have complete faith in the judiciary," she said.