In 2011, Ratan Tata handpicked Cyrus Mistry as his successor at group holding company Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd. Five years later, in October, Tata was instrumental in ousting Mistry.
Cut to this October, there is another Mistry at the receiving end of a fresh, equally bitter, boardroom battle. Mehli Mistry—a cousin of the late Cyrus Mistry—has been voted out of Tata Trusts, which have a controlling stake in Tata Sons. And to think that it was Mehli Mistry who backed Ratan Tata’s half-brother Noel Tata as chairman of Tata Trusts on 11 October 2024, less than 48 hours after the group patriarch died.
The characters of a possible prolonged Tata vs Mistry 2.0 battle may be different, but the circumstances are eerily similar. The exits of the two Mistrys have striking similarities.
Reason #1 for Tata Trusts tussle: Access to Information
On Tuesday (28 October 2025), Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata, along with trustees TVS Motor Co. Ltd. Chairman Emeritus Venu Srinivasan and former defence secretary Vijay Singh blocked the reappointment of Mehli Mistry as a “trustee for life”. The three other trustees—former Citibank India CEO Pramit Jhaveri, Mumbai-based lawyer Darius Khambata and Pune-based philanthropist Jehangir H.C. Jehangir—voted in favour.
A key reason for the rift was sharing—or rather the lack of—information between Tata Sons and Tata Trusts.
According to the Supreme Court’s judgment on 26 March 2021 in the Tata Sons vs Cyrus Mistry case, the majority shareholder (Tata Trusts) can seek information necessary for them to discharge their role of oversight. It accepted that “such majority shareholder must have prior information to take an informed decision to advise his nominee director to take a right call on the said point”. The judgment did not hold that all strategic or inside board-level information must be shared with the trusts, as though they were insiders or directors themselves.
Also, the fact that Tata Trusts nominates one-third of the directors and have affirmative rights under ‘Articles of Association’ does not by itself imply that the board is being run in a manner prejudicial to minority shareholders, according to a Hindustan Times report on 1 April 2021.
Simply put, the Supreme Court recognised that Tata Trusts, as the majority shareholder, has the right to visibility of key information to enable them to oversee Tata Sons, but that did not require Tata Sons to give unlimited access to all board deliberations.
This interpretation spills onto the clause of permanent trusteeship.
Reason #2 for Tata Trusts tussle: ‘Trustee for Life’
On 17 October 2024, the Tata Trusts—Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust which together hold a 51% stake in Tata Sons—met for the first time since the death of Tata Trusts Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata on 9 October 2024.
During that joint meeting, the trustees unanimously resolved that “on expiry of any trustee, that trustee will be re-appointed by the concerned Trust without any limit being attached to the period of reappointment and in accordance with law”. That reaffirmed a policy of lifetime trusteeship subject to review upon reaching the age of 75.
The resolution also prescribed that any trustee who voted against the reappointment of another trustee would be deemed in “breach of their commitment and not fit and proper to serve on the Tata Trusts board by such conduct”.
Essentially, the resolution formalised the governance structure of the Tata Trusts in a “post-Ratan Tata” era. Until, it all came crumbling down.
On 21 October 2025, Venu Srinivasan was unanimously appointed as a lifelong trustee. Four other trustees, led by Mehli Mistry, called the move a “procedural formality” in accordance with the 17 October 2024 resolution.
“It needs to be noted that the substantive decision regarding the reappointment of Mr. Venu Srinivasan and all other trustees was already taken and approved pursuant to the aforesaid resolution on 17 October 2024 by each of the trustee’s and the resolution proposed in Circular No: 87 dated 18 October 2025 is a formalistic one to give effect to an already taken unanimous decision of the trustees,” Mistry wrote in response to a circular dated 18 October, seeking reappointment of Srinivasan.
The resolution also mentions that a Tata Trusts trustee, upon completion of tenure, can be reappointed for life but the vote has to be unanimous. The 28 October vote on Mehli Mistry’s reappointment for life was not unanimous.
“I cannot agree with Mehli Mistry’s suggestion that all reappointments were already approved on 17 October,” a trustee wrote in a circular following the vote against Mehli Mistry. “The resolutions cannot be interpreted in a way that reduces critical decisions—such as trustee appointments—to a mere formality. Such an interpretation is inconsistent with the law and our fiduciary obligations as trustees.”
“The decision to reappoint a trustee cannot be a procedural formality,” a second trustee wrote. “Such a suggestion undermines our fiduciary duty and runs contrary to the law.”
When ET reached out to Mehli Mistry for a comment, he said that “these statements are false and motivated”.
“The minutes of the TT (Tata Trusts) meeting (of 17 October 2024) are the correct order of the meeting,” he wrote in an email to ET. “The non-sharing of the information was one of the key governance concerns because it resulted in the TT acting contrary to the 2021 ruling of the Supreme Court, which mandated sharing of information to TT by TS (Tata Sons), given its public charitable nature”.
This very issue—sharing of information between Tata Sons and Tata Trusts—was the source of friction between Cyrus Mistry and Ratan Tata, and now Noel Tata and Mehli Mistry.
Mehli Mistry is certain to take legal recourse in the matter of his ouster, as Cyrus Mistry did nearly a decade ago. Interestingly, Mehli Mistry had a fractious relationship with Cyrus Mistry, which worsened after Cyrus’s fallout with Ratan Tata. What’s even more interesting is the fact that it was Mehli’s support for Ratan Tata during that time that led to his induction on the boards of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in October 2022, according to Mint. Noel Tata was inducted to the board of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust in February that year.
Clearly, the irony of “then versus now” isn’t lost here.