MUMBAI: The stunning ouster on Tuesday of Mehli Mistry, one of the closest confidants of the late Tata patriarch Ratan Tata who passed into history a little over a year ago, from the boards of the two most important Tata Trusts, is both a victory and challenge for Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata.
Mistry's unceremonious exit marks the abrupt end of his dream to be sitting on the board of Tata Sons after a steady rise within the trusts — the late Tata had handpicked him to join in October 2022. It's a sudden fall for the reclusive maverick who shuns the limelight and has never given media interviews. He is the first cousin of Noel Tata’s better half Aloo Mistry, but that could not spare him the axe.
Mistry’s first three-year term as a trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which together have a 52% stake in Tata Sons along with the Bai Hirabai Jamsetji Tata Navsari Charitable Institution, ended on Tuesday in the most un-Tata way.
Sources told TNIE (the trusts have not spoken a word officially about the ouster or the simmering internal rift plaguing the charities yet) that a majority of the trustees led by Noel and the two vice-chairmen Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh voted against his continuation on the boards of the two cornerstone trusts of the dozen-odd Tata Trusts.
The sources did not name the other trustee who voted against Mistry, and also did not say whether Jimmy Tata, the more reclusive younger brother of Ratan Tata, voted.
For Noel, Mistry’s ouster is a victory and an assertion of his powers as the chairman of all the dozen-odd trusts which together own as much as 66.6% of the $180-billion Tata conglomerate that makes everything from salt to super premium cars and semiconductors, besides running airlines and luxury hotels.
But this power window also opens many a challenge for Noel as Mistry is reportedly planning a legal challenge to his ouster. This could also lead the rival faction of Darius Khambata, Pramit Jhaveri and Jehangir HC Jehangir to be more open in their revolt against the top three trustees. How they plan their next steps will be critical not only for Noel but also for the trusts and even the entire Tata Group.
Earlier, while renewing the appointment of Srinivasan as a trustee for life, the rebel faction led by Mistry, Khambata, Jhaveri and Jehangir voted to retain him provided all future decisions on reappointments are unanimous. They cited the amended articles of association of the trusts (changed last October 17 after Noel took the helm of the trusts), which demand that any trustee’s reappointment should be unanimous and that any dissent vote will nullify the appointment.
The split in the trusts came out into the open last month when Mistry, Khambata, Jhaveri and Jehangir ganged up to question the authority of the chairman Noel when he and Srinivasan proposed the reappointment of Singh onto the board of Tata Sons. Following this, as there was no unanimous vote, Singh resigned from the board of the group holding company with immediate effect.
The unanimous vote for Srinivasan’s reappointment as a lifetime trustee on October 22 gave the false impression that the warring trustees had smoked the peace pipe. The belief that Mistry would be renominated was cemented further last Friday when the chief executive of the trusts Siddharth Sharma moved a motion among the board members seeking a vote on his reappointment.
Mistry rose to become an influential figure within the Tata Trusts and is also a trustee of the Tata Education and Development Trust. He also serves as a director of the Meherji Pallonji group, which has interests in industrial coatings, dredging, shipping, logistics, finance, pharmaceuticals and automobile dealerships.
During the past three years, Mistry reportedly emerged as a leading voice pushing for governance reforms and greater transparency in Tata Sons. He also played a key role in internal disagreements over board appointments in 2025—a rare public display of differing views within the trusts.
While the trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust are Noel Tata, Venu Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, Jimmy Tata, Jehangir Jehangir, Mehli Mistry and Darius Khambata, those manning the boards of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust are Noel, Srinivasan, Singh, Mistry, Pramit Jhaveri and Khambata.
The infighting in the Tata Trusts had drawn the attention of the Centre, with the top brass of the Tata group, including Noel Tata and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran, meeting Union home minister Amit Shah and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier this month.
The government is understood to have told the two sides to resolve the issue amicably and not let their differences spill out in public, considering the significance of the 156-year-old Tata Group to the national economy.
