Venu Srinivasan halted new inductions in Sir Ratan Tata Trust

The Tata Trusts meeting on November 11 was not without drama.

Venu Srinivasan, a trustee in the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) and its Vice-Chairman, is learnt to have objected to the manner in which a resolution proposing to appoint Neville Tata and Bhaskar Bhat as trustees was brought up.

The matter was not listed in the agenda. Mr. Neville and Mr. Bhat were appointed trustees of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) at its board meeting that preceded the SRTT meeting.

SRTT and SDTT are the two biggest in the family of Tata Trusts and collectively hold a little over 51% in Tata Sons.

According to a person present at the board meetings on Tuesday (November 12, 2025), Mr. Srinivasan pointed out that such a matter should not have been brought up under “Any other items for discussion” in the agenda. He is reported to have said that a “proper discussion” was necessary, for which the resolution should have been listed in the agenda.

In the Trusts meeting on Tuesday (November 12), SDTT was taken up first, followed by SRTT. Mr. Srinivasan, who attended the meeting virtually, was not part of the SDTT meeting as his appointment had to be confirmed in line with the Ordinance passed by the Maharashtra government on September 1.

The Ordinance caps the tenure of trustees to three years and limits the number of lifetime trustees.

In the SDTT meeting, lawyer and trustee Darius Khambatta and ex-Citibanker, Pramit Jhaveri, are learnt to have proposed the appointment of Neville Tata as trustee, while Noel Tata proposed Bhaskar Bhat.

According to the source, who did not want to be identified, fellow trustee Vijay Singh was taken aback by the move, but fell in line.

The meeting also resolved to disband the executive committee that was running the Trust, thus vesting final powers with Chairman Noel Tata. The committee had earlier comprised Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, Noel Tata and Mehli Mistry (until his term ended).

(The writer is the Editor, The Hindu businessline)