Venu Srinivasan springs a surprise on Tata Trusts
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Tata Trusts vice-chairman Venu Srinivasan has caught the institution he helps lead off guard, with the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner's order barring the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) board meeting on May 16 citing, among other reasons, a complaint filed by Srinivasan himself.
The order issued on Thursday by Charity Commissioner Amogh S. Kaloti, under Section 36A(1) of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, directed the Trusts to defer the board meeting and not hold any such sitting until an inspector's inquiry into the composition of the SRTT board is complete.
The order states that “complaint of similar nature dated 28-04-2026 by one Venu Srinivasan, Trustee of Sir Ratan TATA Trust was also received through E-mail” and placed before the assistant charity commissioner alongside an earlier representation from advocate Katyayani Agrawal.
That disclosure has surprised some trustees.
“We were completely in the dark that Srinivasan had approached the charity commissioner as he had not communicated the same to the trusts. It was surprising considering that he is not just a trustee but also the vice-chairman of the Trusts,” said a source at the Trusts.
The source pointed to past instance that Srinivasan is said to have ignored. “When he was removed from the Bai Hirabai trust, he had communicated with Tata Trusts CEO Siddharth Sharma. But if he had any issues with the SRTT board, the least would have been to communicate through a mail,” the source said.
A board split
The turn of events suggests the Trusts is in a state of disarray, with trustees Vijay Singh and Venu Srinivasan on one side, and chairman Noel Tata on the other. What had thus far played out as a quiet boardroom disagreement over governance, representation on the Tata Sons board and the question of a possible future listing of the group holding company has now become a fight with a sitting vice-chairman invoking statutory machinery against his own trust.
The key issue is the composition of the SRTT board as Section 30A(2), inserted into the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act by an ordinance effective September 1, 2025, caps lifetime trustees at 25% of any trust's total board strength. Of SRTT’s six trustees, Noel Tata, Jimmy Tata, and Jehangir H C Jehangir, are “life trustees”, which doubles the statutory ceiling.
The May 16th meeting agenda reportedly included reconsidering Tata Trusts’ representation on the board of Tata Sons. At present, the Trusts chairman Noel Tata and Srinivasan serve as nominees on the Tata Sons board. SRTT holds a 23.56% stake in Tata Sons, while Tata Trusts collectively own around 66% of $180-billion conglomerate’s holding company.
The Trusts' meeting had already been pushed once from May 8, after a writ petition before the Bombay High Court, now withdrawn, sought to restrain it. The commissioner's intervention now pushes it indefinitely, until the inspector’s report is submitted.