Mistry, who was last month ousted as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding firm for the $100 billion steel-to-software Tata empire, said in a statement that this decision made it harder to invest in the acquired assets and placed jobs at risk.

In the statement Mistry also defended his involvement in growing the revenues and profits at two key group companies, Tata Consultancy Services (>> Tata Consultancy Services Limited) and Tata Motors (>> Tata Motors Limited), that make up the bulk of Tata's $100 billion revenues.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Douglas Busvine)