Govt appoints three independent directors on ONGC board

THE government has appointed former IFS Ajai Malhotra and two others as non-official part-time directors on the board of ONGC. The move follows after it sacked three UPA-appointed independent directors on the nation's biggest oil and gas producer’s board almost one year back.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp in a regulatory filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) said that...
ministry of petroleum and natural gas through letter dated November 20, 2015 has appointed Ajai Malhotra ex-IFS, IIT-Bombay Professor Shireesh Balwant Kedare and Chennai-based chartered accountant KM Padmanabhan as independent directors on the company board. The appointment will be "for a period of three years from the date of the notification i.e. November 20, 2015 or until further orders, whichever is earlier," ONGC said.
Earlier, in September last year, former power secretary P Umashankar, chartered accountant S Ravi and former BPCL CMD RK Singh ceased to be independent directors on the board after the company did not move a resolution before the shareholders seeking confirmation of their appointment.
After the appointment of three, the strength of independent directors on ONGC board has risen to four. The board already has chartered accountant K Narasimha Murthy as independent director.
But the strength is short of nine independent directors needed to fulfil the listing requirement.
ONGC board has seven functional directors, including the chairman and managing director and two government nominee directors.
"The Board of Directors have approved the appointment of Ajai Malhotra, Prof Shireesh Balwant Kedare and K M Padmanabhan as Additional Directors on the Board of ONGC with effect from November 20, 2015," ONGC said in the filing.
While three independent directors were removed, other two - Prof Samir Kumar Barua of IIM-Ahmedabad and former State Bank of India (SBI) chairman OP Bhatt were allowed to complete their time till December 13, 2014.
The government had also removed four independent directors of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), two of Engineers India, one of Hindustan Petroleum Corp and all five non-executive or independent directors of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL). These removals followed sacking of all the UPA-appointed independent directors on board of Coal India (CIL).