Birlas trying to mislead on stake holding: Tatas

Launching a counter offensive in the ongoing controversy over stake holding in Idea Cellular, Tatas on Tuesday dubbed the position of joint venture partner AV Birla Group as "misleading" and asserted that they were under no legal obligation to exit from the venture.

In a strongly-worded letter to the government, Tata Industries said, "Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd is simply raising shareholder grievances and seeking shareholder relief in a forum that is not meant to decide these issues" and urged department of telecom not to entertain "frivolous and baseless allegations made by ABNL and reject the same."

"There has been no breach of promoter's stake or substantial cross holding obligation contained in the pre-amendment Idea Cellular licence, which in any event is not any legal obligation that exists today," it said.

Tatas communication follows a Birla group letter to DoT on February 22, demanding government intervention for immediate exit of the former from Idea. The war of letters between the two oldest corporate houses in the country continues, even as a meeting believed to have been called by DoT on Monday with the two partners was deferred and reasons for the postponement were not known.

Responding to several charges made by Birlas against them, Kishore Chaukar, MD, TIL, in his communication said that ABNL's complaint was not maintainable at this stage, as Idea itself had sought DoT's extension till June 30 with the full consent of the Aditya Birla group.