Tata Sons has hit back at its former
chairman, Cyrus Mistry, claiming he made "malicious allegations"
against the Indian conglomerate.
Mr Mistry was unexpectedly sacked on Monday and a highly critical five-page letter he sent to the Tata board was leaked on Wednesday.
He alleged constant interference in his decisions and outlined a litany of fundamental problems at the company.
Tata Sons dismissed Mr Mistry's claims out of hand.
"The
correspondence makes unsubstantiated claims and malicious allegations,"
Tata Sons - the holding company of Tata Group - said in a statement
issued on Thursday. "These will be responded to in an appropriate
manner."
Tata gave no explanation for replacing Mr Mistry with his predecessor, Ratan Tata, on Monday.
In
his letter Mr Mistry offered a brutal assessment of many aspects of the
Tata Group, warning it could face writedowns worth almost 1.2 trillion
rupees ($18bn).
Mr Tata made numerous acquisitions in his time at
the top, overseeing deals such as the $12bn acquisition of Corus, the
former British Steel, in 2007, and the purchase of Jaguar Land Rover a
year later.
Tata claimed that Mr Mistry's time as chairman was "marked by repeated departures from the culture and ethos of the group".
He had "overwhelmingly" lost the confidence of the board, the statement said.
Public
corporate spats are rare in Indian corporate life, particularly with
well-established conglomerates and business elders such as Mr Tata, who
ran the Tata group for more than two decades before hand-picking Mr
Mistry as his successor.
J. N. Gupta, a former executive at
India's markets regulator and now managing director at Stakeholders
Empowerment Services, said: "It has taken everyone by surprise. Nobody
would have thought such things could happen at Tata."
Nalin Kohli,
a national spokesman of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata
Party and a supreme court lawyer, said: "The larger question will
remain whether a legal battle will serve the interests of shareholders."
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