Tata Motors Shareholders Reject Executive Pay Levels

Shareholders of struggling Tata Motors Ltd. have rejected salary levels for three top directors because of the company's pretax loss in the fiscal year ended March 31.

Under Indian law, the executives may be forced to return excess payments they received in fiscal 2013-2014. The law does not apply to salaries paid to executives of Tata Motors' Jaguar Land Rover unit in the U.K.

India requires publicly traded companies to gain approval from 75% of their shareholders for annual salaries above certain levels if the company makes little or no profit. Tata garnered 70% support.

In this case, the affected directors the late Managing Director Karl Slym and Executive Directors Ravindra Pisharody (trucks) and Satish Borwankar (quality) each are entitled to only 4.8 million rupees ($80,300) unless shareholders approve more.

Bloomberg News says Slym and his family were paid 151 million rupees ($2.5 million) last year. Slym died in January after an apparent suicide jump from a Bangkok hotel room.