YES Bank directors: court refuses Madhu Kapur ad interim relief

The Bombay High Court on Thursday refused to grant any ad interim relief to YES Bank’s second largest shareholder Madhu Kapur, who had sought a stay on the re-appointment of two directors.

Madhu Kapur, widow of the bank's late co-founder Ashok Kapur, had challenged the re-appointment of two non-executive directors — Diwan Arun Nanda and MR Srinivasan — at the 11{+t}{+h} Annual General Meeting held on June 6, 2015, on the grounds that they were age-barred being over 70.

The RBI had, on a request by the Bank, allowed the two to remain on the board till October 2016.

To Madhu Kapur’s plea, the judge said, “I cannot micro-manage the bank… I am nobody to give instructions. If the RBI says 2016, it stays...”

In a statement, YES Bank said Nanda and Srinivasan would assume office with immediate effect. “The court has also prima facie validated the appointment of Diwan Arun Nanda and Ajay Vohra as Independent Directors on the Board of YES bank stating that their appointment at the 11th AGM of YES Bank held on June 6 is in compliance with the observations made by the court in its judgment dated June 4, 2015,” the statement said.

On Wednesday, the High Court held that the right to nominate directors was to be exercised jointly by Madhu Kapur and Rana Kapoor and not individually. The Judge had said: “I have very little doubt that there are Articles that require amendments, both for consistency going forward and also to resolve the present disputes”.

The court also rejected the plea to appoint Shagun Kapur-Gogia, daughter of Madhu Kapur, to the YES Bank board. “Whether or not the board found Shagun’s work profile and background commensurate is not for me to assess. This is entirely outside my remit,” the Judge said.

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