Feb 24, 2011 10:38 GMT  ·  By

Pressed by multiple organizations to adopt a proposal that would force Apple to disclose a solid CEO succession plan, Apple shareholders have declined voting in favor of such a proposal at their meeting yesterday, where Apple COO Tim Cook was present.

The most vocal of these groups was the Central Laborer’s Pension Fund in Jacksonville, Illinois, which stressed that Apple owes it to the shareholders to disclose their strategy for instating a new Chief Executive Officer, once Steve Jobs steps down.

Steve Jobs is currently on medical leave of absence for an undetermined period of time.

The CEO has battled a rare form of pancreatic cancer which, according to some experts, may have returned to give Jobs a final blow, following an apparently successful liver transplant.

Shareholders, while just as concerned about Steve Jobs’ health, have refused to sign in favor of a proposal that would force Apple to say who is their next CEO in line, or at least what their plan is in the eventuality that Jobs would have to leave.

They presumably sided with Apple on the company’s hypothesis that disclosing such a plan would give competitors an advantage.

In fact, Apple believes that, in doing so, competitors would be in a position to offer the potential CEO a better, higher-paid job in their own camp.

Apple is now free of having to answer to such pressure from outside groups, but it has a bigger concern still - the actual medical condition of its iconic CEO.

It is believed that not even high-profile execs at Apple know the full details of Steve Jobs condition at the moment.

Not helping Apple’s stock one bit, the CEO has been caught on film walking out of a cafe looking thinner and more emaciated than ever.

Based on pictures presumably taken by the same source, physicians have claimed that Jobs has under two months two live.

He is also known to be receiving some form of treatment at the same cancer clinic actor Patrick Swayze visited before he passed away.