The board of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) is set to meet on February 15 to discuss and approve the appointment of Neville Tata as a trustee, those in the know said.
This will be the third time the board will convene to discuss the matter. On two previous occasions, the proposal to appoint Neville, Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata’s son, to the board of SRTT failed to be passed.
In November last year, the proposal could not be approved when Venu Srinivasan, who serves on the board of SRTT and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust as vice-chairman, reportedly raised objection to the way in which the item was listed on the agenda.
Those close to the matter said that Srinivasan objected raising compliance concerns since the matter was listed as a secondary item when it should have been listed as a main agenda item.
What happened?
The matter was then supposed to be taken up in a board meeting scheduled for January 17. However, due to reasons hitherto undisclosed, the meeting was cancelled, even when other Trust meetings took place as planned. Once again, Neville’s appointment remained in a limbo.
Together SRTT and SDTT are the key trusts that constitute the philanthropic body Tata Trusts. Tata Trusts in turn holds 66% stake in Tata Sons, the corporate entity that holds the Tata Group companies.
The meeting on February 15 comes on the heels of reports that SDTT trustee Pramit Jhaveri has asked Noel Tata that he be excused from consideration for reappointment when his term as a trustee ends on February 11.
Jhaveri, former Citibank chief executive, wrote to the chairman of the Trusts expressing his wish on January 31. Jhaveri’s exit from Tata Trusts will add to the ongoing shuffle currently observed on both SDTT and SRTT boards.
Recent tensions at Tata Sons
All through last year, murmurs of rising strife amongst the trustees grew louder, with tensions coming to a head when Mehli Mistry, former Tata Trusts trustee, opposed the nomination of Vijay Singh to the board of Tata Sons.
This was followed by a what observers perceive to be a power struggle between the ‘new guard’ led by Noel Tata, who took over the role of chairman after Ratan Tata’s passing in 2024, and the ‘old guard’, led by Mistry. After weeks of strife, extensively documented by the media, Mistry stepped down from his duties as a trustee. At the time of the reported power struggle, Jhaveri was considered to have sided with Mistry.
The appointment of Neville to the SRTT board is largely being seen as a consolidation of Noel Tata’s leadership within the Trusts ranks. Neville, along with former Titan managing director Bhaskar Bhat, was appointed to the board of SDTT in November last year.