Board Card: Stock exchanges fine 15 top PSUs
stock exchanges this week for non-compliance of Securities and Exchange Board of India's listing requirements pertaining to composition of board directors.
BPCL, HPCL, Indian Oil, ONGC, GAIL, Indian Railway Finance Corp, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and Ircon International, among others, received notices from BSE and NSE separately, asking them to pay up a fine of ₹5,42,800 each to both the bourses.
According to the stock exchange disclosures, these companies failed to comply with a norm that requires them to have have a minimum number of independent directors on their boards.
Most companies said in their exchange filings they have approached the bourses to consider waiver of the fines as the power to appoint directors, including independent directors on their board vests with the government.
«The Company is following up with the government from time to time to appoint the required number of directors on its board, and GOI is seized of the matter,» said HPCL. BHEL said that it regularly takes up with the government for the appointment of requisite number of independent directors to ensure compliance with the regulations.
Out of the 77 listed firms with market cap exceeding Rs1000 crore that are yet to adhere to the board composition norms, 50 are public sector entities, according to data from Primeinfobase.com.
Out of 11 directors in BHEL, only three are independent. In BPCL and HPCL, only six out of 13 are independent directors, according to Primeinfobase.com.
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