Stock exchanges have slapped fines on state-owned oil and fuel companies together with IOC, ONGC and GAIL for their failure to meet listing necessities
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Stock exchanges have slapped fines on state-owned oil and fuel companies together with IOC, ONGC and GAIL for their failure to meet listing necessities of getting a requisite variety of unbiased administrators and girls administrators.
In separate filings, the businesses detailed the fines imposed by the BSE and NSE however have been fast to level out that appointment of administrators was completed by the federal government they usually had no function in it.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was slapped a ₹3.36 lakh wonderful, whereas Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was requested to pay ₹5.36 lakh wonderful.
Gas utility GAIL was slapped ₹2.71 lakh wonderful, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) ₹3.59 lakh, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) ₹3.6 lakh, Oil India Ltd ₹5.37 lakh and a wonderful of ₹5.37 lakh was imposed on Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL).
Except for IOC which was slapped with the wonderful for not having the required one girl director on the board, all the businesses have been fined for violating the norm of getting the required variety of unbiased administrators.
IOC stated the ability to appoint administrators (together with unbiased and girls administrators) vests with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India.
“And hence the non-appointment of women independent directors on the Board during the quarter ended June 30, 2023 was not due to any negligence / fault by the company,” it stated. “Accordingly, Indian Oil should not be held liable to pay the fines and the same should be waived-off”.
IOC stated it usually takes up the problem with the ministry, for appointment of requisite variety of unbiased administrators (together with Woman unbiased director), to guarantee compliance with company governance norms.
“We would also like to inform that the company had received similar notices from the BSE and NSE in the past imposing fines and waiver requests from the company was considered favourably by the exchanges,” it stated.
HPCL made an analogous submitting and cited previous document of inventory exchanges waiving such fines.
ONGC stated it has requested the federal government for nomination of the requisite variety of unbiased administrators on the board of the corporate.
“Since the appointment of directors is beyond control of the company, request letters have been submitted to stock exchanges for waiving off the fine levied,” ONGC stated.
BPCL stated it had complied with the necessities for the monetary 12 months 2022-23 and until April 30, 2023.
But the appointment of a full-time administrators with impact from May 1, 2023 led to BPCL having 5 whole-time Directors, two nominee administrators of the federal government and 6 unbiased administrators.
As per norm, BPCL ought to have had seven unbiased administrators – equal to the manager administrators (5 whole-time administrators and two authorities nominee administrators).
BPCL stated it has “requested the Government of India from time to time for the nomination of one independent director. As the directors are appointed after receipt of nomination from Government of India. BPCL has no control over the appointment of Directors.”
The agency stated it will likely be approaching BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited for waiver of the fines. “Similar letters were received earlier from the stock exchanges for which waiver request was made by BPCL and the same was considered favorably by the stock exchanges,” the submitting stated.
Oil India Ltd (OIL) stated the non-compliance was past the management of the corporate as it’s a authorities enterprise and administrators are appointed by the executive ministry, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
MRPL stated it’s following up with the federal government from time to time for appointing the required variety of administrators on its board.
GAIL stated, “all the directors on the board of GAIL (including independent directors) are nominated/appointed by the Government of India. As such, appointments are outside the purview/control of the GAIL’s management.”
