The ministry of corporate affairs on Thursday moved the Company Law Board to recall four out of the six directors appointed by the government on the fraud-hit Satyam Computer’s board. “Now four of the directors can come back to their own professions. However, Mahindra Satyam has requested that two of the directors stay back for some more time. We are OK with it,” Salman Khurshid, minister of corporate affairs told Financial Chronicle.

A senior ministry official said that the remaining board members would be recalled in a “gradual manner” because their expertise would be required for a few more months by the newly-formed Mahindra Satyam. “As of now both the ministry and the company have decided that at least two members would stay on,” he said.

Officials said former Nasscom president Kiran Karnik, CII’s chief mentor Tarun Das, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh and former Securities Appallate Tribunal chair-man C Achuthan have decided to step out of the company’s board.

Karnik later spoke to this newspaper and confirmed that he had decided to quit the board. “I can’t speak for the others, but I would not be on the board of the company from hereon,” he said. Das could not be reached for comments.

T N Manoharan, a chartered accountant, and Suryakant Balkrishna Mainak of the LIC would stay back for some more time.

The government had invited Das, Karnik, Parekh and Achuthan to form the board within 48 hours of B Ramalinga Raju’s confes-sions to the Rs 7,000 crore fraud. This was done to save the company from closing down and give confidence to its 60,000-plus employees.