The battle over control of the Tata Trusts has acquired yet another dimension with a petition filed by a lawyer with the Charity Commissioner, Mumbai, on Saturday, drawing his attention to a violation in the matter of lifetime trustees on the board of Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT).
The petition, filed by lawyer Katyayani Agrawal of law firm SV & Co, sought “urgent intervention”, alleging that SRTT, which has three lifetime trustees in a board of six members, violated the provisions of Section 30A of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950.
This section, introduced through an amendment in September 2025, says perpetual or lifetime trustees can make up only one-fourth of a public trust’s board. The ratio is now half in SRTT.
Agrawal is understood to have filed the petition on behalf of her senior, Justice T Raja, who retired as acting Chief Justice of the Madras High Court in May 2023.
When businessline contacted Justice Raja, he initially said that any interested person could file a petition as SRTT is a public charitable trust. But he later confirmed that the petition was filed on behalf of a client whom he declined to identify. An e-mail sent to Tata Trusts’ CEO Siddharth Sharma did not elicit a response until the time of going to the press.
‘Defeats amended section’
The petition argued that the continuation of three perpetual trustees defeats the object of the amendment, which was to prevent entrenchment of a small group of lifetime trustees, ensure broader accountability and protect the public charitable character of trusts.
“Such violation renders the current constitution of the Board of Trustees illegal and liable to be rectified forthwith,” the petition argues, calling for an immediate inquiry into the composition of the board and a direction to the Trust to comply with Section 30A by reducing the number of lifetime trustees.
SRTT, set up in 1919, and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, are the two main trusts that together control 50.54 per cent shareholding of Tata Sons Pvt Ltd. The current trustees in SRTT are Noel Tata (Chairman), Venu Srinivasan (Vice Chairman), Vijay Singh, Jimmy Tata, Darius Khambata and Jehangir HC Jehangir. Of these, Noel Tata, Jimmy Tata and Jehangir HC Jehangir are lifetime trustees. According to the current law, there can be only one lifetime trustee on the board of SRTT.
Unless the trust board size is doubled, two of the present lifetime trustees will lose their privilege. Significantly, Jimmy Tata, younger brother of the late Ratan Tata, was already a lifetime trustee on the board when Noel, their half brother, was inducted into the board in 2019. The petition appears to take aim at Noel now.
The petition has sought immediate intervention. “Given the high public profile of the Trust and the fact that it controls significant public charitable funds, any delay in intervention will perpetuate an illegal state of affairs and erode public confidence in the regulatory framework. I, therefore, request that this matter be treated as extremely urgent and appropriate action be taken within the shortest possible time,” it said.