You are a practicing Company Secretary named AAA and has been approached by Secretarial Department of LMN Ltd. (a listed company) seeking your opinion on the appointment of following person as Independent Director on the

Mr. Khalid, who was earlier promoter of TCA Ltd., a subsidiary of LMN Ltd. No, Mr. Khalid cannot be appointed as Independent Director of LMN Ltd. because as per Regulation 16 (1) (b) (ii) of SEBI (LODR) Regulation, 2015 an Independent Director means a person who is or was not a promoter of the listed entity or its holding, subsidiary or associate company. In the given case, Mr. Khalid was one of the founder promoter of holding company of LMN Ltd., hence he cannot be appointed as an Independent Director.