Independent directors have no financial ties: RIL

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries, whose chairman Mukesh Ambani is involved in a feud with brother Anil, on Monday described as "baseless allegations" the reports that three of its independent directors had financial ties with the company.
In a communication sent to the stock exchanges on Monday, RIL said the reports that cast "baseless aspersions" on Dr D V Kapur, Y P Trivedi and S Venkitaramanan — three "distinguished" members of the company’s board — are part of a "disinformation tirade".
The communication said that ever since their appointments to the board, the three directors had not been paid any amount — other than the sitting fees as a director — either by the company, its promoters, any person involved in its management or by any subsidiary.
Kapur, Trivedi and Venkitaramanan were appointed as additional directors in March 2001, April 1992 and August 2002 respectively.
This made it abundantly clear that there had been no violation of the provisions of the Listing Agreement, and all the Sebi circulars in this regard, it said.
The communication to the exchanges said a section of the media has allowed itself to be "used during the last few weeks for spreading misleading and slanderous falsehood against RIL, its associate companies, members of the Board and other functionaries."
"These baseless allegations need to be dismissed with the contempt they deserve because knowledgeable people, financial experts and corporate analysts can easily see through the utter falsehood of this tirade," it said.
RIL officials said the disclosure made it clear that the independence of the three directors was not affected at all. Sources said all the three directors were taken on the RIL board during the life time of group founder Dhirubhai Ambani.
The communication followed reports that D V Kapur was appointed as consultant by Reliance Capital MD Anand Jain on February 15, 2001.