Mistry-Tata saga is a wait and watch game: Experts

Tata Sons ousted Chairman Cyrus Mistry said on Tuesday that any indication that he had mishandled a drawn out dispute with its Japanese telecom partner NTT DoCoMo Inc were baseless, ratcheting up the war of words between the two feuding sides.In an e-mail, Mistry’s office said that all the decisions were unanimously taken with approval from board of Tata Sons and Ratan Tata.“Cyrus Mistry will be using the press because that suits him and from there he will decide whether he wants to settle the matter or whether he wants to use this as a leverage for settling the mater or to go to the court and gain some sympathy or play the card of a victim. Basically it is wait and watch," said Hitesh Jain of ALMT Legal. Below is the verbatim transcript of MR Venkatesh, Suhas Tuljapurkar, Hitesh Jain and Abhishek Manu Singhvi's interview on CNBC-TV18.Shereen: This is the second official rebuttal that is coming from Cyrus Mistry’s office and he says in this rebuttal that insinuations that the DoCoMo issue was not handled as per Tata culture is baseless. There were a number of discussions on the DoCoMo issue that had taken place at the level of Tata Sons board. He ends his statement by saying that actions were consistent with every such collective decision. All decisions were taken with unanimous approval of Tata Sons board and with concurrence of Mr Ratan Tata and N.A. Soonawala to suggest that Mr Mistry acted on his own is as false as it is mischievous.Manu Singhvi: Look, I don’t think we are here to discuss a point by para by para rebuttal to what he says. The company will take care about it I am not concerned about it. If there are factual issues somebody will reply. I only want to say that if you read what you have just read carefully would it not apply fully also to Mr Mistry, who is fully participant, fully consensual and fully agreeing in all decisions of Tata from 2006 to 2016. He was a director of 2006 exactly the same word we just quoted would apply to Mr Mistry I would imagine, so therefore I don’t think it is quite understandable as to why all these allegations have been made, when you have left after 10 years, despite having the very same consensual participative role on the board of Tata as a director, which is no less and then for 4 years as a chairman.Therefore I think it in a sense itself becomes contradictory. As far as individual facts are concerned, the figures are concerned that’s for the company to deal with, I am not here to deal with that and DoCoMo anyway is now a matter in court, so it will be dealt by the court.Shereen: What you make of this approach that the Cyrus Mistry side has adopted. This is as I pointed out the second official rebuttal that’s come in, so far from the Tatas we have seen a very generic response to the 5 page letter that was put out by Mr Mistry saying or suggesting that it was beneath the Tata Groups’ dignity to point by point issue a rebuttal. What you make of the strategy that is being adopted by the Cyrus Mistry side and do you believe it is prudent for the Tata Group to not respond point by point?Manu Singhvi: There is no question of my discussing strategy of people whom I am representing nor can I opine about the strategy of those who are on the other side. All I have said earlier and I want to repeat that which is this, “it doesn’t serve much purpose or at all any purpose to keep on making this allegation or counter allegations in the press. I don’t think that mere silence can be treated as an admission of guilt. I don’t think that a lack of approach by the Tatas that we will wash more dirty linen than yours in public would be the right approach and it is a mistake to think that Tatas’ silence and restraint is any manner indicative of unnecessary reticence”.Many people believe that Tatas restraint has been exemplary and its corporate majority, corporate governance, corporate decision making by consensus on a board where ultimately majority counts and if the board has decided to take a stand, it is not point keeping on writing letters and throwing into the public because you are only washing dirty linen on judgements which you have taken yourself as a director for 10 years.Shereen: This seems to have become a little bit of a media battle now. This is the second official rebuttal that has come in from Cyrus Mistry's office. Do you believe that we are possibly headed to the courtroom anytime soon or do you believe that we are going to see a lot more of this before either side decides to move court?Jain: I think that before the matter really goes into the court room you will see this battle being fought out in media and some back channel talks will start between the parties as to whether they really want to battle it out in the court or they would like to resolve it amicably.I think today's statement by Cyrus Mistry is more so to the fact that there has been a lot of speculation, there are no reasons that have been spelt out. However there was a lot of speculation in the media also as one of the reason for his ouster may be the manner in which the handling of DoCoMo issue went. So, to that extent he has come out clean that these are the facts which I want to place it across.However as far as legal situation is concerned, if he wanted to challenge his ouster as the chairman, he would have approached the courts immediately.As far as options are concerned, suits for damages and all again is a long drawn out battle. I think there will be some time before he will file a suit or something.The other last option that will be remaining with him is the 397, 398 petition. However in 397, 398 petition it takes year, two years. So, any legal action, they may take time but they would like to see an impact in the minimum time. If you are going to get into a legal action which will spread out over a year, perhaps then they will I think hold on to the legal battle and then only you are going to see any movement.Shereen: A quick word from you?Jain: Tata's are very clear that they have said that the ball is in Cyrus Mistry's court whether he wants to do a media trail or go to the court. We don't see Tata's going to the court. So, as I mentioned earlier Cyrus Mistry will be using the press because that suits him and from there he will decide whether he wants to settle the matter or whether he wants to use this as a leverage for settling the mater or to go to the court and gain some sympathy or play the card of a victim. Basically it is wait and watch.As far as Ramadorai is concerned, I think it is a coincidence, speculation, since everything is so much close, I think we will have to wait and watch whether it is a real coincidence or it is just a speculation._PAGEBREAK_Shereen: We have been waiting and there has been a lot of talk that the Tatas will respond point by point to the five page letter that Cyrus Mistry had put out. But what we saw from the Tatas was a statement which said that it is below our dignity or beneath our dignity to respond point by point and give a rebuttal of the issues that Mr Mistry has raised in his letter. Do you expect a response from the Tatas to this rebuttal that has come in from Cyrus Mistry?Tuljapurkar: My view is that yes, there would be rebuttal, but again, it will not going point by point in terms of how these decisions were made. What would probably happen, and I absolutely agree with you that the current state indicates that there is no standstill. Nobody is backing down so to speak. So, it is heading towards these kind of allegations. Having said that, I do not know what has prompted this letter, whether it is in response to insinuation as the letter makes out, insinuations made across the media or has there been any specific insinuation. So I am not too clear as to what has triggered this letter and this is to be considered as response to what insinuation. Are these insinuations made directly made directly to Mr Cyrus Mistry, Shapoorji Pallonji Group or these are the insinuations which are out in the media. So, it is in response to those insinuations and it starts off with it.Shereen: A quick word from you on the day’s developments, both the stories?Tuljapurkar: In case of Mr Ramadorai, I would just like to point out that he is already 71 years plus. So, in terms of getting any executive position so to speak, it may be very difficult. His age is already 71. So, in analysing any of these issues, we should keep that in mind. Secondly, coming back to the point that Dr Singhvi talked about to say that possibly the person who started the media trial should really respond to whether he wants the media trial at this stage and whether this would go through media trial before it gets into the litigation. My view is that the responses from Tata Groups have been very restrained and rightfully so, whether that is indicative of a strategy or not, is immaterial, but at some point in time, if the media trial damages Tata or their ability to raise questions in the court of law, they will probably consider postponement of publication orders from any of the courts that is possible today under the guidelines set by Supreme Court are earlier. So, if somebody wants to avoid media trial today, it can be avoided.Shereen: Just yesterday we were talking about the Articles of Association of Tata Sons and the implications they will have for the future course but today there is a second rebuttal that has come in from the Cyrus Mistry side and it clearly seems that the Mistry side is not deescalating matters at least at this point in time. Venkatesh: Definitely I don’t expect the Cyrus Mistry camp to back down one wee bit so early. It is going to be long legal battle; everybody knows about it. It is not only prestige or the financial issues at stake, it is the ego issues at stake. My experience tells me whenever there is ego involved in any battle, in any corporate or a family battle, it is always long drawn, people like to fight till the last penny.As far as the Tata Docomo issue is concerned, we have seen this from one side of the story and what Cyrus Mistry tells us is probably his side of the story. We have to wait till the Tata’s come and they put out their version of what they would like to tell us is the truth. So, till such time, we can’t jump the gun and say this is the crux of the matter. Shereen: As our colleague Ronojoy Banerjee, who broke this story suggested, that coincidences are sometimes plans in disguise. We don’t know for a fact yet if Ramadorai’s resignation has anything to do with what is currently developing at the Tata’s but what would you make of it? Skill India is the big plan for this government, it is a mission critical project for this government and we now have Ramadorai resigning both from the NSDA and NSDC. The timing seems a bit interesting. Venaktesh: There is nothing called coincidence. There is only that you were not being able to see the hidden hand of pulling pulley. So, as far as this is concerned, there is a remarkable coincidence if at all it is a coincidence. As far as Ramadorai coming into the helm of Tata Sons, it is a bet I would like to play on because for a few reasons he is a old hat, he is an insider, he knows the mood of the entire group, he would be one of those who would be balancing the whole situation far too effectively for everybody’s comfort.