Harish Salve, Abhishek Manu Singhvi weigh in on Tata boardroom battle

Senior advocates Harish Salve and Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the ongoing battle between Tata Sons and Tata Trusts is likely to move from the boardroom to a courtroom.

Salve is likely to appear for Tata Sons, with Singhvi representing Noel Tata or Tata Trusts in the case. Singhvi said on X that shareholder — owners’ fundamental rights “cannot be nullified in the manner in which they have been.”

The Tata Sons board on Thursday approved a five year term for chairman N Chandrasekaran in a 4-1 vote, after he said in August that he would not seek another term. Noel Tata, Chairman of Tata Trusts, which holds about 66% of Tata Sons, voted against the move. Trust’s nominee Venu Srinivasan voted in favour.

The board, decided by majority to proceed with steps towards a public listing after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rejected a Tata Sons’ application for deregistration as an upper layer non-banking finance company.

Salve, a former Solicitor General of India who has acknowledged advising Tata Sons and Chandrasekaran, spoke to ANI from London when asked about a listing. He described the Tata Group as India’s largest corporate enterprise and said it is “the face of India”. He said the group holds assets it has received from the government, including Air India, does defence work for the government and is setting up hydrogen projects.

“They are a global institution. A global institution cannot be run by three trustees saying we want it to go by our culture, what culture are we talking about? Today, in the day and age of transparency, an institution must refresh itself from time to time and the best talent must run this institution for the sake of not just the company, not for the shareholders, but for India,” he told ANI.

Singhvi, a Rajya Sabha member who has previously represented Tata Sons in 2021 against Cyrus Mistry, is advising Tata Trusts. In a post on X, he said he was entering the dispute as lead lawyer for one side and regretted that the issues could not be resolved amicably, citing earlier work with Ratan Tata.

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In his reading, the Supreme Court’s 2021 judgment in the Tata-Mistry case gave the Trusts primacy in their relationship with Tata Sons and upheld the special Articles. He said unanimity in Trust voting and the veto provisions had been applied for decades, and that a relationship of over a hundred years should not be severed. Without collegiality, he said, the issues would require legal resolution.

In a statement on Sunday, Tata Trusts said the September 17 resolution is void ab initio. It said Article 121 of Tata Sons’ Articles of Association requires the affirmative vote of a majority of Trust-nominated directors, and that a casting vote applies only where board votes are equal. It also said Tata Sons has voluntarily adopted governance practices of public companies.