Much expected board meeting of Sir Ratan Tata Trust cancelled

A board meeting of Sir Ratan Tata Trust scheduled for Friday to reconsider nominations to the board of Tata Sons was cancelled for unspecified reasons, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The meeting was cancelled despite the Bombay High Court declining to stay the meeting of Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT), which owns 23.6 per cent of Tata Sons, the holding company of the over USD 180 billion Tata Group.

"The meeting did not happen. No reason was specified," one of the persons said.

No new date for the meeting has yet been informed.

An emailed query to Tata Trusts did not elicit a response.

A petition had challenged the meeting, citing that the trust's current board composition breached statutory limits introduced under the Maharashtra Public Trust (Second Amendment) Act, 2025.

It cited that SRTT currently has six trustees and three of them -- Jimmy Naval Tata, Jehangir HC Jehangir, and Noel Naval Tata -- are lifetime trustees, constituting 50 per cent of the board, exceeding the statutory ceiling of 25 per cent.

The proposed meeting of the board of SRTT was reportedly called to discuss, among others, the reconsideration of Tata Trusts representatives on the Tata Sons board.

At present, Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata and Vice-Chairman Venu Srinivasan are on the board of Tata Sons. Last year, former defence secretary Vijay Singh had resigned from the Tata Sons board.

The Friday board meeting was planned amid two trustees -- Srinivasan and Singh -- publicly recommending the listing of Tata Sons, a stand that Noel Tata is totally against.

The simmering tension among trustees of the congregation of philanthropic bodies under the Tata Trust umbrella that control 66 per cent in Tata Sons has been continuing since last year.

Earlier in January this year, a proposed board meeting of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT), which was supposed to take up the appointment of Neville Tata, son of Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata, as a trustee, was cancelled due to lack of quorum.