Valli Arunachalam has been fighting for a board seat in Murugappa Group’s family holding company Ambadi Investments since her father’s death in 2017.
Will the promoter family of industrial conglomerate Rs 38,105- crore Murugappa Group induct a female for the first time on the board of family holding company Ambadi Investments Ltd?
The answer will be known on September 21, 2020 when the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) will be held through videoconference.
As per the notice calling the AGM, the general body as a special business will consider the appointment of Valli Arunachalam as a board member.
The notice said Arunachalam had sent a notice on August 5, 2020 along with a deposit of Rs 100,000 to propose her candidature for Director’s post.
Valli Arunachalam is the daughter of the late MV Murugappan – who was the grandson of Murugappa Group founder Dewan Bahadur AM Murugappa Chettiar. MV Murugappan, who died in 2017, left the 8.15% stake he held in Ambadi Investments to his wife and his two daughters. Ambadi Investments is the holding company of the Rs 37,000-crore family-run conglomerate.
Early this year, the US-based Arunachalam, the daughter of late MV Murugappan, had alleged that the group promoters have gender bias against women getting into family business and hence she or her sister were denied a board seat in Ambadi Investments after their father’s death in 2017.
She had laid two demands to the other branches of the Murugappa group family — give a board seat to her or her sister Vellachi Murugappan or buy her family’s 8.15% stake in Ambadi Investments at a fair value.
Arunachalam had said her family also holds stakes in the group’s listed companies.
She had said that after her father’s demise, her family did not have a board representation in Ambadi Investments.
Murugappan was on Ambadi Investments’ board since 1969 until sometime in 2016, when he resigned due to health reasons.
Interestingly, the unwritten ‘male only’ rule in the Ambadi Investments’ board room was there for a long time, including the time when Arunachalam’s father Murugappan was alive.
Read: Valli Arunachalam’s fight for gender equality in Murugappa Group: An exclusive interview
Responding to the issue, she had told IANS earlier: “My father and I never discussed this. However, I have checked with my mother and she has confirmed that my father often expressed his displeasure over the exclusion of women from the management of the family business, albeit in the face of resistance of other family members.
In an interview to TNM, Valli said she’s not only fighting for her right – she also hopes to set a larger precedent against gender discrimination.
This also comes after the Supreme Court ruled on August 11 that the Hindu Succession Act, 2005, can be applied retrospectively to daughters who were alive when the law was brought in, irrespective of whether their father was alive or not. This means, that daughters who were born even before 2005 have coparcenary rights to the joint Hindu family property. Coparcenary refers to a person who can claim a legal right to ancestral property by birth.
The Supreme Court bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah heard a bunch of pleas on whether the Hindu Succession Act 2005 can be applied retrospectively.
Justice Arun Mishra, while reading out the order, referred to the old Irish saying: “A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life.”
Also read: Daughters have equal claim under Hindu Succession Act even if born before 2005: SC
Source: The News Minute