Tata Sons feud draws Rahul Gandhi, Nirmala Sitharaman into public spat

Bengaluru and Mumbai: A dispute over who should lead Tata Sons spilled into politics on Wednesday, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying the Tata Group is being “criminally destroyed” and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman accusing him on X of politicising a business matter.

The exchange marks a rare public intervention by senior political leaders in the leadership dispute at Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group. For months, the battle had played out through boardroom discussions, letters and legal opinions.

Gandhi fired the first salvo on Wednesday morning, alleging that the group was being “criminally destroyed” while business leaders remained silent.

“Tata is being criminally destroyed, and no business leader dares say a word. How long will you stay silent? Until they own you?” Gandhi wrote on X.

His remarks come amid a dispute over Tata Sons’ leadership and whether the company should go public. Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata has challenged the validity of the 17 September board resolution reappointing N. Chandrasekaran as chairman of the group’s holding company.
The disagreement has pitted the Tata Sons board against its controlling shareholder, Tata Trusts, which opposes the reappointment and a public listing, raising questions about the future of the conglomerate, which owns Jaguar Land Rover and Air India.

Six hours later, Sitharaman accused Gandhi of politicising the dispute, saying it was unacceptable to casually describe business and legal matters as criminal. She also accused him of repeatedly criticising the achievements of Indian industries and entrepreneurs.

Referring to economic policy before liberalisation, Sitharaman said the licence-quota raj had constrained entrepreneurship and contributed to poverty. The Modi government, she said, sees Indian businesses as a key source of jobs, investment and growth.

“So Rahul ji, refrain from seeing ghosts everywhere,” she wrote.

Later in the evening, Gandhi posted again on X, questioning a meeting involving Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata, Tata Sons chairman Chandrasekaran and other trustees with Home Minister Amit Shah and Sitharaman at Shah’s residence on 7 October last year.

“Which ‘legal and commercial matter’ required Tata Trusts and Tata Sons to be hosted at Amit Shah's residence?” Gandhi wrote.

Details of what transpired at the meeting remain unclear.

The dispute at Tata Sons is rooted in a contest over governance and control. Noel chairs Tata Trusts, an umbrella body comprising 14 philanthropic entities, seven of which own shares in Tata Sons.

The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) and Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) are the largest shareholders, with stakes of 27.98% and 23.56%, respectively. Five smaller trusts own another 14.36%, taking the philanthropic entities’ combined stake in Tata Sons to 65.9%.

Chandrasekaran chairs Tata Sons, which oversees 26 listed companies with a combined market value of $277 billion at the end of March 2026.

The Shapoorji Pallonji family owns 18.38% of Tata Sons, while nine Tata Group companies hold 12.86%. Seven individuals own the remaining 2.87%, taking the combined shareholding outside the philanthropic trusts to 34.1%.

On 12 August, Chandrasekaran said he would not seek reappointment when his term ended in February next year, citing Noel’s opposition, which he said had persisted since the start of the year.

On 17 September, however, Chandrasekaran agreed to the Tata Sons board’s request to continue and was granted a third five-year term, despite Noel’s objection. Tata Trusts called the reappointment process “illegal”, alleging that it did not comply with the rules set out in Tata Sons’ Articles of Association.

Since the acrimonious board meeting on 17 September, Noel has written five letters to the Tata Sons board, alleging flaws in the approval of the resolutions. He has also faulted the board for not recording the minutes of the discussion and for not sharing the video recording with him.

Beyond the differences between Noel and Chandrasekaran, executives within the group have pointed to the role of two government authorities: the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner.

The RBI classified Tata Sons as an upper-layer non-banking financial company in September 2022 and directed it to list by September 2025. Tata Sons made several requests to the central bank, repaid nearly ₹22,000 crore in loans and became debt-free before seeking cancellation of its core investment company (CIC) registration in March 2024.

The RBI did not agree to the request, even as it revised the rules for classifying upper-layer NBFCs.

On 12 September, five days before the Tata Sons board meeting, the RBI wrote to the company rejecting its request to surrender its CIC registration and directing it to comply with the applicable rules.

The Maharashtra Charity Commissioner, which functions under the state’s Law and Judiciary Department, has also drawn attention. An order dated 15 May barred the Sir Ratan Tata Trust from holding meetings or taking decisions after Srinivasan alleged that its three permanent trustees exceeded the state rule limiting such trustees to one-fourth of the total.

While the final order on SRTT remains pending, a Charity Commissioner official on 5 December asked SDTT, Tata Sons’ largest shareholder, to respond to complaints from two of its trustees, Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh. The two have raised concerns about the trust’s management and sought an investigation.

The restrictions on the trusts’ ability to take decisions come as Tata Sons shareholders are due to vote on whether Chandrasekaran can continue as a director at the company’s annual general meeting. The AGM, which could not be held on 18 August because of the Charity Commissioner’s restraining order on SRTT, is expected to take place before 31 December.

“For now, there is no evidence to suggest that there is any political involvement in the decisions undertaken by either the RBI or the Charity Commissioner. Moreover, neither has given a final decision,” said H.P. Ranina, a senior Supreme Court lawyer.

Varun Sood has been a business journalist writing on corporate affairs for the past 17 years. He currently oversees corporate coverage, including information technology (IT) services, aviation, auto, metals and mining, and conglomerates at Mint. He started as a reporter at Business Standard in 2005, after a short internship at the Economic and Political Weekly. Having worked across newsrooms in Delhi and Mumbai, including at DNA, the Financial Times, and the Economic Times, he is now based in Bengaluru. He is most proud of his work over the last decade at Mint, including writing about the rise and fall of some CEOs at Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, and Wipro. His first book, “Azim Premji: The Man Beyond the Billions”, was published by HarperCollins in October 2020. These days, he is spending more time reading annual reports and analysts' transcripts. Varun’s two pet peeves are access journalism and the dying art of interviews with business leaders. If you think there is something wrong inside your company or there are problems with corporate governance that you'd like to highlight, email him at varun.sood@livemint.com.

Satish John serves as the Managing Editor at Mint, bringing over 30 years of experience in business journalism. He began his career in 1996 as a reporter at the Telegraph after a brief stint in the corporate sector. During his three decades of journalism, Satish has written on almost all sectors, including conglomerates, power, metals and mining, aviation and auto. Before joining Mint in 2022 (this is his second stint with the paper after earlier working from 2008 to 2011), Satish worked at The Economic Times and DNA. At Mint, Satish oversees the corporate, banking and markets coverage. One of his key roles is to manage news reporting teams and ensure their coordination across cities. The other important role he plays is in helping the paper get big news scoops and stories. His colleagues say he is a great raconteur and always has some interesting stories about promoters and companies. These days, Satish is exploring podcasts and AI tools to better tell stories and reach a wider audience. Inside the newsroom, reporters and editors continue to ideate with Satish to better their stories.

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