Reacting to the charges made by Modi Rubber chairman T. Panduranga Rao, Bhupendra Kumar Modi today clarified that he has never deliberately stayed away from a board meeting of the company.
Rao had told Business Standard that B K Modi was divested of his managerial responsibilities as he was unable to devote sufficient time to the company and was not able to attend board meetings regularly.
In a board meeting on 28 June, Vinay Kumar Modi was given control of production as well as sales and marketing. Earlier, while he was in charge of sales and marketing, B K Modi was looking after production.
The clarification was issued by Modi Rubber chief executive (strategy) Bhaskar Sharma on behalf of B.K. Modi. "B.K. Modi has been attending meetings of the board regularly since he joined the board in 1976. He is a non-retiring director under the provisions of the articles of association of the company," a statement issued by the company said.
The statement also said that Modi Rubber is taking disciplinary action against the company secretary, Som Nath Ghosh, for his actions directly as well as through The Institute of Company Secretaries of India.
As per the statement, the Modi Rubber board meeting on 28 June, where Vinay Kumar Modi was given full managerial responsibilities, was convened despite the knowledge hat B.K. Modi would be in Singapore during the day attending a board meeting of ModiCorp to finalise the bidding strategy for the fourth cellular licence. This board meeting, according to the statement, was first scheduled for 30 June and was then postponed till 3 July before finally being fixed on 28 June.
At a board meeting held on 28 April 2001, the statement goes on to add, it was decided that the next meeting of the board will be held on 28 July, 2001. This date was fixed keeping in view the fact that all modalities of the public offer would be completed on 12 July as per the original schedule and by then the new shareholding pattern in the company would be available.
Strangely enough, the statement says, in mid-June, while the offer by the Modi brothers was open, the Modi Rubber company secretary created confusion by issuing notices for convening the board meeting on various dates without discussion with the two managing directors, V.K. Modi and B K Modi, which had otherwise been the practice all along.
