In a further escalation of the rift within the Tata Trusts — set to meet on Friday to appoint their nominees to the board of Tata Sons — vice-chairmen Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh have been asked to step down from the Tata Education and Development Trust (TEDT) at the end of their current term.
The decision follows a vote earlier this week in which trustees Mehli Mistry and JN Mistry opposed their reappointments to the little-known trust.
While the Tata Trusts did not officially confirm the development, a source familiar with the matter told TNIE on Wednesday that Siddharth Sharma, chief executive of Tata Trusts — which owns 66.4% of Tata Sons — has asked Srinivasan and Singh to relinquish their trusteeships by May 10, when their current terms end. The request was conveyed through separate emails sent earlier in the day, the source added.
Under the articles of association of the Tata Education and Development Trust, as well as the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, appointments and reappointments of trustees require unanimity. In this instance, the opposition from the two Mistrys effectively blocked the reappointments, prompting Sharma to ask Srinivasan and Singh to step down.
The trust had met on May 3 to consider their reappointments. While Srinivasan and Singh voted in favour of each other, Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata did not cast his vote at the time, the source said.
The development marks a fresh flashpoint in the internal discord within the Tata Trusts, coming just days ahead of a crucial board meeting on May 8 that is expected to take a call on the reappointment of Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran for a third term.
The trusts have the right to nominate one-third of Tata Sons’ nine-member board. Currently, they are underrepresented, with only two nominees—Noel Tata and Srinivasan—after Singh exited the board last September following opposition from four trustees.
Since Noel Tata assumed the chairmanship of the trusts in October 2024, after the demise of Ratan Tata, internal differences have intensified. The first major flashpoint came last September when Singh’s reappointment to the Tata Sons board was rejected by four trustees—Mehli Mistry, Pramit Jhaveri, Darius Khambata, and Jehangir C. Jehangir.
Subsequently, some trustees, including Srinivasan and Singh, pushed for a listing of Tata Sons, in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s stance. This was followed by the removal of Mehli Mistry from a trust last October, which led to a legal challenge.
Mehli Mistry has also approached the Charity Commissioner, questioning the eligibility of Srinivasan and Singh to serve as trustees of the Bai Hirabai Tata Navsari Charitable Institution, citing their non-Parsi status.
Though the Tata Education and Development Trust is not a shareholder in Tata Sons, it is among the more prominent entities within the Tata Trusts network and is estimated to manage a corpus of over Rs 5,000 crore. The trust focuses on education-led philanthropy, including scholarship programmes.