Vijay Singh’s future on board of Sir Ratan Tata Trust in doubt as term nears end

Ranina added that even in that case, all the trustees of SRTT would have to vote unanimously on Singh’s reappointment because “the new rules of the state charity commissioner clearly state that all appointments at Trusts need to be unanimous”.

The other principal Tata Trust is Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT). Singh will also face reappointment to the SDTT board in December, having been inducted on 12 December 2018. According to a third executive, who also requested anonymity, his reappointment at SDTT too could face opposition from the majority of trustees.

SRTT and SDTT together control 51.4% of Tata Sons, while the wider Tata Trusts own 65.9% of the Tata Group holding company.

A former defence secretary, Singh is one of two vice-chairmen of Tata Trusts, the other being TVS Motor Company’s chairman emeritus, Venu Srinivasan.

The other four SRTT trustees are Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata, Ratan Tata’s younger brother Jimmy Tata, lawyer Darius Khambata, and Pune-based businessman and philanthropist Jehangir H.C. Jehangir.

An email sent to Singh and Tata Trusts seeking comment remained unanswered till press time.

New rules

An ordinance by the Maharashtra charity commissioner that came into effect on 1 September 2025 introduced two important rules governing all trusts registered in the state.

First, the regulator capped the number of permanent or lifetime trustees at a fourth of the total board. Second, the commissioner said all trustee appointments and reappointments required unanimous, not majority, approval.

Both rules had a direct impact on Tata Trusts. SRTT has three permanent trustees, including Noel and Jimmy Tata, and Jehangir.

For this reason, on 15 May, the Maharashtra charity commissioner ordered the Tata Trusts board not to hold any meetings until it completes its probe into complaints about the trust’s composition.

Srinivasan and lawyer Katyayani Agrawal had complained to the regulator that three of SRTT’s six trustees were permanent members, in breach of the new rule capping perpetual trustees at a fourth of the board.

Tata Trusts maintains that all three of its SRTT trustees were made permanent well before the Maharashtra Public Trusts Rules, which capped the lifetime of trustees at a fourth of the total number of trustees, came into effect on 1 September 2025.

For now, the charity commissioner is yet to pronounce its order on whether SRTT can hold a meeting.

The background

If not reappointed to either trust, Singh’s exit from the Tata Group would mark a second significant board change in the philanthropic entities’ composition in the past 22 months since Noel Tata took over as chairman of Tata Trusts on 11 October 2024 after the demise of his half-brother Ratan Tata.

Since then, the trusts have witnessed a series of disagreements over board appointments and governance.

It began when the majority of Tata trustees removed Singh as their third representative from the Tata Sons board in September last year.

Four trustees, including Mistry, Khambata, Jehangir, and former Citibank India boss Pramit Jhaveri, were unhappy that their nominees on the Tata Sons board were not sharing with them the business decisions made by the group’s holding company. Noel Tata and Venu Srinivasan are the two Trust representatives on the six-member Tata Sons board.

That development appeared to have brought Singh closer to Noel and Srinivasan, both of whom voted for his continuation as a member of the Tata Sons board.

Meanwhile, Mehli Mistry ceased to be a Tata trustee on 28 October last year, after Noel, Singh and Srinivasan opposed his continuation at the end of his tenure.

Soon, differences between Noel and Srinivasan arose. In November, SDTT inducted Noel’s son Neville Tata and Bhaskar Bhat, former Titan Company chief executive officer (CEO), as trustees, but Srinivasan blocked their induction onto the SRTT board. The TVS chairman emeritus had not attended the SDTT meeting that approved Neville and Bhat.

Disagreements persisted when Noel objected to N. Chandrasekaran’s third term as Tata Sons’ chairman starting February 2027, prompting the board to defer a decision on his reappointment. Mint reported in March that Noel was in favour of extending Chandrasekaran’s term by two years rather than five.

Finally, in May, Noel, along with Mistry, opposed the reappointment of Srinivasan and Singh to the Tata Education and Development Trust, an affiliate of Tata Trusts, deepening divisions within the philanthropic entities that control the group.

This came after Srinivasan and Singh publicly supported listing Tata Sons, signalling a shift, especially because Tata Trusts had unanimously agreed last summer that the Group would keep the holding company private.

Apart from the 51.4% owned by SRTT and SDTT, 14.36% of Tata Sons is owned by six smaller trusts, Shapoorji Pallonji Group owns 18.38%, nine Tata Group companies own 12.86%, and seven individuals own the remaining 2.87%.

Varun Sood has been a business journalist writing on corporate affairs for the past 17 years. He currently oversees corporate coverage, including information technology (IT) services, aviation, auto, metals and mining, and conglomerates at Mint. He started as a reporter at Business Standard in 2005, after a short internship at the Economic and Political Weekly. Having worked across newsrooms in Delhi and Mumbai, including at DNA, the Financial Times, and the Economic Times, he is now based in Bengaluru. He is most proud of his work over the last decade at Mint, including writing about the rise and fall of some CEOs at Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, and Wipro. His first book, “Azim Premji: The Man Beyond the Billions”, was published by HarperCollins in October 2020. These days, he is spending more time reading annual reports and analysts' transcripts. Varun’s two pet peeves are access journalism and the dying art of interviews with business leaders. If you think there is something wrong inside your company or there are problems with corporate governance that you'd like to highlight, email him at varun.sood@livemint.com.

Satish John serves as the Managing Editor at Mint, bringing over 30 years of experience in business journalism. He began his career in 1996 as a reporter at the Telegraph after a brief stint in the corporate sector. During his three decades of journalism, Satish has written on almost all sectors, including conglomerates, power, metals and mining, aviation and auto. Before joining Mint in 2022 (this is his second stint with the paper after earlier working from 2008 to 2011), Satish worked at The Economic Times and DNA. At Mint, Satish oversees the corporate, banking and markets coverage. One of his key roles is to manage news reporting teams and ensure their coordination across cities. The other important role he plays is in helping the paper get big news scoops and stories. His colleagues say he is a great raconteur and always has some interesting stories about promoters and companies. These days, Satish is exploring podcasts and AI tools to better tell stories and reach a wider audience. Inside the newsroom, reporters and editors continue to ideate with Satish to better their stories.