Barely 18 months after Ratan Tata’s death, the philanthropic entities that control two-thirds of India’s biggest business empire are once again in turmoil. On 4th April, Venu Srinivasan, chairman emeritus of TVS Motor and vice-chairman of multiple Tata charities, resigned from the Bai Hirabai Jamsetji Tata Navsari Charitable Institution. The move followed an affidavit filed with the Maharashtra charity commissioner by Mehli Mistry, a former trustee, one-time confidant of Ratan Tata and executor of his Will. Mr Mistry contended that Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh, both non-Parsis, had been unlawfully appointed as trustees to the Bai Hirabai Trust, whose 1923 deed supposedly restricted trusteeship to Zoroastrians.
The Bai Hirabai Trust, along with the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, holds about 50% of Tata Sons, the unlisted holding company of the US$180bn (billion) Tata group that spans steel, software, cars, salt, aviation and hotels. Turmoil at the trusts inevitably ripples through India’s most reputed corporate house. Tata Sons is already locked in a quiet dispute with its single largest external stakeholder, the Shapoorji Pallonji group (18.37% stake), which wants to monetise its holdings and secure a fair exit. Simultaneously, Tata Sons is lobbying the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to remain unlisted, despite its classification as one of the 10 upper-layer non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). Such companies are subject to greater scrutiny and have to be listed. It has already secured considerable regulatory leeway, but internal skirmishes that destabilise the group will reflect poorly on RBI’s oversight. In order to avoid listing, Tata Sons has already imposed tough self-restrictions, including debt repayment and borrowing curbs, which limit its ability to support the group.
Settled Issue
Interestingly, the issue raised by Mehli Mistry was considered settled nearly 25 years ago. In March 2000, former chief justice MH Kania gave a detailed opinion to the Sir Ratan Tata Trust after examining Sir Ratanji Jamsetji Tata’s 1913 Will and the codicil that created the charity. He concluded that the documents contained no community restriction on trustees. One clause in the codicil allowed additional local Parsis for the Navsari property if needed for efficient management, but the core trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust would continue unchanged. Justice Kania also ruled as ‘bad in law’ two restrictive clauses in the Navsari property deed that required all trustees to be Zoroastrians and residents of the old Bombay Presidency, because they amended the founder’s directions.
The opinion was sought precisely to diversify the trusts’ boards and has been relied upon ever since. Mehli Mistry’s demand for a fresh investigation by the charity commissioner has, nevertheless, reopened the matter, triggered Venu Srinivasan’s resignation and drawn Noel Tata directly into the fray. Unless the commissioner dismisses the charge, a prolonged legal battle and needless controversy seems likely.
What makes the episode particularly unsavoury are the intertwined family relationships. Mehli Mistry, a close confidant of Ratan Tata, was inducted as a trustee in 2022. He is also first cousin to the late Cyrus Mistry and to Cyrus’s sister Aloo Mistry, who is married to Noel Tata. When Cyrus Mistry was ousted as Tata Sons chairman in 2016, Mehli sided with Ratan Tata and soon became a dominant voice on the trusts. His three-year stint ended acrimoniously in October 2025 when Noel Tata, Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh voted against renewing his lifetime trusteeship. Although Mehli resigned with a graceful letter emphasising that ‘nobody is bigger than the institution’, his latest action suggests a sharp reversal. (Read: “Nobody Is Bigger Than the Institution”: Mehli Mistry’s Farewell Letter as Tata Trusts Rift Deepens)
Tata group sources say they are trying to persuade Venu Srinivasan to withdraw his resignation. But he already faces pressing governance issues within the TVS group, where family disputes and questions over director independence and governance have erupted after a dramatic board meeting on 30th March that saw him return as chairman and managing director of the holding company Sundaram Clayton (now TVS Holdings) after having stepped down four years earlier. (Read: Succession Undone: The TVS Group’s Governance Crisis). Mr Srinivasan will clearly have his hands full handling governance issues inside his own business empire. Mr Singh, the other non-Parsi Trustee, has not resigned.
In a new twist, the trustees reportedly told The Economic Times that they were never informed about Justice Kania’s opinion and resigned at the hurried insistence of the Tata Trusts’ CEO. If true, this raises serious questions about their willingness to act in haste without due consideration of all relevant facts—including the long-standing presence of non-Parsi trustees on the Trusts.
What Next?
Having succeeded in ousting Venu Srinivasan, the question is: What does Mehli Mistry hope to accomplish? Noel Tata’s appointment as chairman of the Tata Trusts had already signalled that a Parsi and a Tata was firmly in charge. The sudden insistence that all trustees must be Parsis smacks of parochialism, which is at odds with the group’s public image and actions. (Read: Tata Group’s Succession Drama: Will Noel Tata Restore Stability or Trigger New Tensions?).
Is the motive simply to keep Noel Tata distracted while the decision on granting a third term to N Chandrasekaran as executive chairman of Tata Sons has been deferred, or is there a bigger game plan? Mr Tata had raised pertinent questions over losses at Air India, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Digital and the heavy spending on semiconductors and batteries. The new ventures of Tata Sons are likely to report a staggering loss of ₹29,000 crore in FY25-26, compared to an earlier projection of just ₹5,700 crore, according to a news report.
There is speculation that Mehli’s action has internal support among some trustees and an objective that goes beyond creating dissonance. If so, it is a strange gamble. The government has so far refused to permit needless destabilisation of the Tata group. In 2024, a decisive intervention from Delhi ended a power struggle and led to Noel Tata’s appointment. (Read: Tata Group’s Succession Drama: Will Noel Tata Restore Stability or Trigger New Tensions?).
The Tata model of a trust-owned, professionally run, values-driven corporate group derives its stature and ‘governance premium’ from the absence of a succession crisis. While its image took a dent when Cyrus Mistry was removed, it still recovered, but this cannot endure forever.
Moreover, the ongoing US-Iran war, which has caused a surge global oil prices and triggered a shortage of helium (critical for semiconductor fabrication) and aluminium (vital for automotive and aerospace manufacturing), could see the group’s ambitious semiconductor and battery plants face higher input costs and potential delays from disrupted global supply chains; Jaguar Land Rover, already nursing losses, will contend with elevated raw-materials prices, while Air India, which is still struggling, will face further pressure on profits due to a soaring fuel bill.
This is Noel Tata’s defining stress test. He must do what Ratan Tata achieved in the 1990s, when he ruthlessly asserted control and restored stability in the Tata group by ousting several powerful satraps. The task will be made easier by the fact that he enjoys broad support from the Parsi community, which views Mehli Mistry’s actions with suspicion.
The government, however, must take the longer national view. The Tata group directly employs over a million Indians and operates in strategically vital sectors—semiconductors, civil aviation, green energy, defence manufacturing and IT services. Its cherished ‘governance premium’ will evaporate if internal wrangling persists. The cleanest way to restore discipline is to subject Tata Sons to public disclosure, market scrutiny and the capital-market regulation that comes with listing. In an era of geopolitical turbulence, putting the nation first demands nothing less.
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The quantum of money lost by Chandra in all his pet projects has been truly mind-boggling - we are talking of THOUSANDS of crores. The TATAs have been great at public perception management - evidenced by all those Ratan TATA fan stories regularly released on LinkedIn. But for shareholders, the TATA group has been nothing but a big disappointment, some sporadic bright spots notwithstanding. I sincerely hope Noel TATA completes the job which Cyrus had started (and was forced to abandon mid-way.) Noel needs to ruthlessly shut all these vanity projects of Chandra and stem the bleeding of cash. Just this much is enough to start with because all the cash generating group companies will then be able to use some of it for their own good!
"Tata model of a trust-owned, professionally run, values-driven corporate group" - is it a well crafted facade to distract governance issues / failure of the management to stand scrutiny on other performance parameters or something else. In their respective industries, the financial performance and other parameters of evaluation, Tatas do not score very high among their competitor peers.
Yes, MY POINT exactly! All this is a sham - when shareholder value is eroded constantly and Chandra chases vanity projects, which is a luxury he is able to afford because of the few cash cows in their group generating this cash.
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