Tata dispute must be settled amicably and out of public view, says Sitharaman

Mumbai: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the dispute within the Tata group should be resolved by the stakeholders themselves and kept out of the public eye, stressing that the conglomerate is too important to India's economy for a prolonged standoff.

“This is a very critical component of the Indian economy and therefore it has to be amicably settled among themselves,” Sitharaman said at a Financial Express event in Mumbai. The issue “cannot be spilling out like this in the public,” she added.

Calling the matter sensitive, the finance minister said a resolution would require business judgment and mutual goodwill. She declined to comment on whether the government would step in to facilitate talks between the two sides.

The dispute has centred on the reappointment of N. Chandrasekaran as chairman of Tata Sons and the debate over a potential stock market listing of the holding company. Tata Trusts, which owns 65.9% of Tata Sons, is opposed to a listing, although trustees Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh have supported the idea, Mint reported.

On Monday, Mint reported that senior Supreme Court lawyer Darius Khambata has chosen not to seek another term as a trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, the two principal Tata Trusts, in a letter sharply critical of the Tata Sons board’s 17 September decision to reappoint Chandrasekaran.

Speaking ahead of her tenth consecutive budget, Sitharaman also signalled that the government was listening to concerns over foreign portfolio outflows, though she stopped short of promising tax relief. She pointed out that the tax structure in 2023-24, when inflows hit a record, was the same as it is today, but said the situation had since shifted. “Circumstances have changed, challenges have grown, more FII (foreign institutional investor) outflows have happened,” she said, adding that foreign investors had started returning.

The government had spent the last few years deepening the bond market, Sitharaman said, but there was now a demand that equities receive similar support. “I wouldn’t want to say more at this stage, but I recognize the voice,” she said, adding that taxation was only one part of the issue. Asked what the government could realistically do to win back foreign investors when US Treasuries offer attractive risk-free returns, she said it would first hear all stakeholders and then decide what it could act on.

On tax administration, the minister said the government’s approach rests on trusting taxpayers, citing faceless assessment and the next-generation goods and services tax (GST) overhaul as examples, and that she would continue such reforms at the finance ministry.

Sitharaman also marked a shift in her view of private-sector investment. Asked whether she was frustrated that industry kept seeking reforms without opening its purse strings, she said she would have agreed a couple of years ago. “But now I’m not going to say that, because I’m seeing industry come out,” she said. Companies may be selective about sectors, she said, but the demand that followed the GST rate rationalisation of September 2025 had given them the confidence to invest.

She also rejected concerns that sluggish wage growth, even as corporate profits rise, could dent consumer demand. “I still think India’s consumption story will be intact,” she said, pointing to October GST collections, which she said were the highest. She dismissed suggestions that the figures were propped up by imports, arguing that most such imports were raw materials needed by exporters.