Thursday, February 3 2005 12:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: The Company Law Board (CLB), Chennai, today (Feb 03, 2005) asked Federal Bank to take into account ICICI Bank's voting for its entire stake in the Kerala bank at the AGM held on September 27, virtually allowing the Mumbai bank's two nominees a berth into Federal Bank's board.

Following the CLB order, ICICI Bank's nominees P H Ravikumar, executive director of the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and Prof A M Salim will be considered elected to the Federal Bank's board of Directors.

The two CLB bench, comprising chairman S Balasubramanian and member K K Balu also upheld the ICICI Bank's plea that K P Fabian, one of the nominee, was ineligible to contest in the election to the Federal Bank's board as he was already a board member in Syndicate Bank.

Fabian, a son-in-law of Federal Bank's founder K P Hormis, had been declared elected at the Aluva-head quartered bank's AGM in September.

Though ICICI Bank held 20.44 per cent stake in Federal Bank, the votes for only 12 per cent (equivalent of 26 lakh votes) were taken into consideration by the Federal Bank chairman and managing director K P Padmakumar, who was acting as the chairman for the AGM.

C J George, managing director of Geojit Securities, was also found to be "ineligible" to contest the elections to the board, as his nomination did not come through the Federal Bank's then board of directors.

George, however, had stepped down from the Federal Bank board, after ICICI Bank received a stay on the resolutions passed at the AGM.