Tata Trusts, majority owners of the $290 billion Tata empire, has received a clean-chit from the state charity body, which dismissed a plea that alleged that share transfer between the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust (NRTT) and Naval H Tata in 1989 was illegal.
Throwing out the petition by Tata Trusts vice-chairman Vijay Singh who is also on the board of the NRTT, the charity body said Singh was acting on his own “to damage the reputation of the trusts, thus proving his conduct was unbecoming of a trustee.”
Coming down heavily on Singh for not making his email complaint known to the rest of the trustees, charity commissioner Amogh Kaloti in his September 2 order said, “Singh’s complaint indicates an intention on his part to suppress this from the other trustees and the trusts as a whole. This has resulted in damaging the reputation and goodwill of the trusts. In that sense, his conduct was unbecoming of a trustee of NRTT”.
On June 10, 2026 Singh sought an inquiry into the transfer of 833 shares of Tata Sons from the NRTT to the late Naval H Tata, (father of both Ratan and Noel Tata) in 1989. His complaint to the charity body was in response to a complaint filed by one Suresh Patilkhede who alleged that the share transfer was improper under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950. But according to the NRTT, Singh did not inform the trustees about his complaint.
“The Tata Trusts stands vindicated in their assertion that the allegations are baseless, unsubstantiated and mala-fide, undertaken as part of a wilful, malicious and orchestrated campaign which had, as its sole aim, the objective of discrediting the trusts,” the trusts said in a statement Thursday.
The commissioner also expressed surprise that “in the board meeting dated June 8, 2026, Singh was a party to the resolution that was passed to represent NRTT's case before the charity commissioner but on June 10, he proceeded to file a complaint with the charity body demanding an independent inquiry.”
Concluding that no enquiry was needed, the commissioner concluded that “the share sale was necessitated on account of statutory compulsions and that the share transfer was effected by proper documentation.”
He also noted that sale was done based on the commissioner of wealth tax’s valuation, and that NRTT earned a profit this as seen in its balance-sheet for fiscal 1989.
“The shares were transferred with the condition that they won’t be sold to any third-party but would always remain in the family of the recipient, and, therefore the transfer was made in full compliance with the provisions of the law then in force,” the order said.
Singh, who was alleged of corruption in the Augusta Westland VIP chopper scam when he was the defence secretary, was brought to the trusts by the late Ratan Tata himself in 2017. Till last year, he was also on the board of Tata Sons when his reappointment was opposed by other trustees at the September 11, 2025 board meeting. He continues to be a vice-chairman of the Sri Dorabji Tata Trusts, the largest of the 13 charities that own 28% of Tata Sons. Last month he retired from the SRTT.
But this is not the end of the troubles for the Tata Trusts, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust that owns close to 24% of Tata Sons, has been banned by the charity body in May from holding it board meeting, following a complaint by an advocate that it has 50% board as life-time trustees, which is against the new rules (amended in September 2025) of the state charities laws that allows only 25% such members. This led to the first-ever adjournment of the Tata Sons’ AGM on August 18 in its 109-year-history, which was preceded by the resignation of Tata Sons chair N Chandrasekaran, because according to the rules of Tata Sons any decision has to be taken unanimously by both the trusts.
The AGM was supposed to reappoint him as a director of Tata Sons, a pre-condition for his continuation as the chairman. Last week, the company got RoC permission to hold the AGM within three months.
