Tata Trusts case: Bombay High Court allows withdrawal of writ petition challenging trustee structure
The division bench comprising Justice Advait Sethna and Justice Sandesh Dadasaheb Patil, while allowing the petition to be withdrawn, observed that the petitioner was not the principal complainant in the underlying case before the charity commissioner and did not mention the principal complainant.
The detailed order had not been uploaded at the time the story was filed.
Before the court’s decision, Senior Lawyers Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Janak Dwarkadas appeared before the court on behalf of Tata Trust and other respondents and argued that the petitioner does not have jurisdiction to file the petition here.
The writ petition filed by Suresh Tulsiram Patilkhede has alleged that the current board structure of the trust violates the legal limits imposed by the Maharashtra Public Trusts (Second Amendment) Act, 2025 and hence any decision taken by it violates the law.
The petitioner also said that all decisions taken after September 1, 2025 should be declared invalid on the same grounds.
The written petition requests the postponement of the SRTT meeting, currently scheduled for May 16. Earlier, on May 7, the petitioner approached the court, which refused to grant any interim measures and verbally said that he could approach a recess bench for further assistance.
The agenda of the proposed SRTT meeting includes re-evaluating Tata Trusts’ representation on the board of Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata Group entities. Currently, the trust candidates on the Tata Sons board are Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata and vice chairman Venu Srinivasan.
SRTT holds 23.56% stake in Tata Sons. Tata Trusts has a total stake of 66%.
The Maharashtra Public Trusts (Amendment) Regulations, 2025 has inserted a new section, 30A(2), into the legislation governing trusts. It limited the number of permanent trustees to one-quarter of a foundation’s total strength if the foundation deed was silent on the subject or did not contain a specific provision on the subject. The rule, which came into force on September 1 last year, requires existing trusts to maintain the cap at all times.
According to the petition, SRTT currently has six trustees, three of whom (Jimmy Naval Tata, Jehangir HC Jehangir and Noel Naval Tata) are serving as life trustees. This constitutes 50% of the board and exceeds the legal ceiling of 25%.
The petition named the State of Maharashtra, Charity Commissioner, SRTT, as well as trustees Noel Tata, Venu Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, Jimmy N Tata, Jehangir HC Jehangir and Darius Khambata as respondents.
