Bombay High Court allows petitioner to withdraw plea challenging Tata Trusts board composition

Mumbai: A vacation bench of the Bombay High Court has allowed a resident of Mumbai to withdraw his complaint in which he had asked the court to halt a key Tata Trusts meeting scheduled for later this week.

On Wednesday, a two-judge bench comprising Justice Advait M. Sethna and Justice Sadesh Dadasaheb Patil made observations on a petition filed by Suresh Patikhede, a 61-year-old resident of Thane.

The court expressed alarm that the petitioner sought an urgent judicial intervention while his formal complaints regarding board-composition limits under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act remained unresolved by the regulator.

“We are constrained to observe that the proceedings bring out a shocking state of affairs. This is more so for reasons that certain representations are made to the charity office with regards to violation of Section 30(A). On a query put to the petitioner, I have been informed that the representations are pending,” the bench said in its order.

It added, “As the court has expressed displeasure in the manner in which these proceedings are filed, the counsel has very fairly sought leave to withdraw this petition… Considering the given factual complexion the leave to withdraw is granted... disposed of as withdrawn.”

Patilkhede was represented by senior lawyer T. Raja while Sir Ratan Tata Trusts was represented by senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Janak Dwarkadas.

Patilkhede had first made a representation before the Bombay High Court last month, in which he alleged that three of six trustees of Sir Ratan Tata Trusts (SRTT), including chairman Noel Tata, Pune philanthropist Jehangir HC Jehnagir, and the late Ratan Tata’s brother Jimmy Tata, were permanent trustees. This, he said, violated rules that capped the number of lifetime trustees at a fourth of the total number of trustees, and sought an adjournment of meetings of Tata Trusts.

The court declined to issue such an order and asked Patilkhede to approach the vacation bench.

Flurry of complaints

Patilkhede, who fought as an independent candidate against the state’s deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde from the Kopri-Pachpakhadi seat in Thane in 2024, is the third person to file a legal notice seeking a stay on the Tata Trusts meeting over the past month.

In April, Delhi lawyer Katyayani Agrawal filed a similar complaint about the permanent trustees at SRTT before the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner, on behalf of his client Sunil Tulsiram Patilkhede. It is not immediately clear if Sunil Patilkhede and Suresh Patilkhede are related. Mint could not ascertain the reasons for the involvement of Agrawal, Sunil Patilkhede, and Suresh Patilkhede in the affairs of the Tata Group.

On Tuesday, Agrawal sent a legal notice to all six trustees of SRTT, alleging wrongdoing in a 37-year-old transfer of Tata Sons shares from a trust to the late Naval Tata, father of Ratan Tata. He also sent the legal notices to Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran, Tata Trusts CEO Siddharth Sharma, Noel Tata’s son Neville Tata, and former Titan Co. CEO Bhaskar Bhat. Neville and Bhat are trustees of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT).

SDTT and SRTT control 51.4% of Tata Sons, while six smaller trusts own another 14.36%, taking their total ownership in the apex Tata company to 65.9%.

Strangely, all of these complaints have surfaced when differences among the trustees of the Tata Trusts have come to light. Last week, Noel Tata opposed the reappointment of TVS chairman emeritus Venu Srinivasan and another trustee, Vijay Singh, at Tata Education and Development Trust (TEDT), a Tata Trusts affiliate. At the proposed 16 May meeting, the company plans to discuss Srinivasan’s continued tenure as a Tata Trust nominee on the Tata Sons board.