The Company Law Board today reserved its orders on the government's petition for superseding the board of Ramalinga Raju-family promoted Maytas Infra, while suggesting that four independent directors be inducted.

However, the government is unlikely to have its way in replacing the entire Maytas board, as the CLB had yesterday said it was against replacing the board as it saw it no evidence of mismanagement.

The CLB also did not entertain a list of 12 probable directors submitted by Maytas, where Ramalinga Raju's sons B Teja Raju serves as vice chairman.

It favoured selecting a chairman from among the four independent directors to be taken on board.

Lenders IDBI Bank, ICICI Bank and IL&FS on Friday said it welcomed the suggestion for inducting independent directors, while saying they do not want their own representatives for the role. The CLB had suggested the new independent directors be representatives of lenders IDBI and ICICI.

The CLB also said that it would not allow infrastructure development and finance company IL&FS, which owns a 37 per cent stake in Maytas Infra, to get a seat on the board because it is a competitor.

The government had on 17 February filed a petition with the CLB for permission to supersede Maytas Infra's board and replace it with its own nominees. Corporate affairs minister Prem Chand Gupta said the step was taken because of the ''strong possibility that the company was being run with fraudulent intent''.

The legal representatives of IDBI Bank and ICICI Bank told CLB that they wanted an ''independent, impartial and professional'' board for Maytas Infra to restore confidence among stakeholders that the company could complete projects worth thousands of crores that it has on hand.

The CLB observed that with just three directors, including vice-chairman Teja Raju on Maytas Infra's board, its strength had to be increased to bring the company in conformity with the Securities and Exchange Board of India rules, which say that at least half the board should comprise independent directors.

Four more directors can be appointed to Maytas Infra board, with three of them independent directors and one from an institutional lender such as IDBI Bank or ICICI Bank. An official in the ministry of corporate affairs argued before CLB that with the entire shareholding of the promoters of Maytas Infra having been pledged to IL&FS, the current management was only the legal owner and not the 'beneficial' owner.

IL&FS, along with IFCI and Maharashtra government-run Sicom, hold a majority stake in Maytas Infra. The three financial institutions came to own the stake of the promoters, who pledged their shares and were unable to meet margin calls. IL&FS had sought representation on the board citing concerns over the orderly running of Maytas Infra.

Maytas Infra's projects include the Hyderabad metro (Rs12,000 crore), a thermal power plant in Orissa (Rs 5,000 crore), Machilipatnam port (Rs 1,650 crore) and the Godavari drinking water supply scheme (Rs810 crore).

The metro rail project and Machilipatnam port projects are in danger of being cancelled after the Andhra Pradesh government decided to review all projects awarded to the firm.

Maytas Infra is strapped for cash after credit rating agency ICRA downgraded its ratings assigned for its debt programmes and bank facilities following the fraud at Satyam Computer Services.

In mid-December, Satyam announced plans to buy Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties, a real estate company run by the younger son of Ramalinga Raju, but backed down quickly in the face of an investor revolt.