TOWARDS QUIETUS

WITH MEHLI MISTRY BEING VOTED OUT AS A TRUSTEE, THE POWER STRUGGLE AT TATA TRUSTS APPEARS TO BE OVER. WILL THE PEACE HOLD?

- BY KRISHNA GOPALAN

TILL A FEW MONTHS AGO, Mehli Mistry was not widely known outside the small business circles of Mumbai. Even three years ago, his name made barely a ripple when he became a trustee at Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust. Known to be a close associate of Ratan Tata, the Tata group’s former Chairman, he shot into the limelight as a boardroom battle at the Tata Trusts came into the open.

By October 28, when Mistry’s reappointment as a lifelong trustee came up, all eyes were on Bombay House, the headquarters of the salt-to-semiconductor behemoth. The vote went against Mistry; he was ousted from Tata Trusts.

The differences in the board of Tata Trusts, which controls 66% in Tata Sons, the principal investment and holding company of the group, come just a year after Ratan Tata’s demise and the elevation of his half-brother Noel Tata as Chairman of the trusts.

The proximate trigger was a vote against the reappointment of Vijay Singh as a nominee on the Tata Sons board. The Trusts appoint one-third members of Tata Sons’ board.

Incidentally, it was Mistry who proposed Noel Tata’s name for Chairman of the Trusts in October 2024, which was passed unanimously. But just a year later, it was Noel Tata and two others—Venu Srinivasan and Singh—who voted against Mistry’s reappointment.

Mistry has filed a caveat before the Maharashtra Chairty Commissioner asking that he receive a hearing in case the Trusts move to formalise his ouster.

Since then, Mistry has made peace overtures to the board and has stepped down as a trustee. In a letter addressed to Noel Tata, he said, “Precipitating matters would cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the Tata Trusts”.