Tata Sons dispute: Abhishek Singhvi says he enters fray with 'sadness and regret'

New Delhi: Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appointed to represent Tata Trusts, said on Sunday he is entering the fray with "sadness and regret" as these issues could not be amicably solved.

In a post on X, the lawyer said the fundamental rights of shareholder-owners cannot be nullified in the manner in which they have been.

"Having worked closely with Ratan Tata earlier, being aware of his legacy and not only knowing personally all the principal actors on both sides in the current so-called Tata dispute but also having deep, genuine and abiding respect for and excellent equations with all of them, my first reaction, as I enter the fray as the lead lawyer for one side, is one of sadness and regret that these issues could not be solved amicably," Singhvi said.


The Tata Sons board has backed a further five-year term for Natarajan Chandrasekaran, much to the opposition of Noel Tata, and challenge to the validity of the decision by the Trusts.

The Tata Sons board has favoured moving ahead with a public listing following the Reserve Bank of India's rejection of the company's application to surrender its registration as an upper-layer non-banking financial company (NBFC).

Tata Trusts, which collectively controls about 66 per cent of Tata Sons, have opposed the listing, with chairman Noel Tata urging the company to explore alternatives.

Singhvi said stultifying shareholder-ownership rights would spell doomsday for corporate governance across hundreds of Indian companies.

He said that to stymie democratic intra-trust decision-making by Tata Trusts by putting a sudden and completely unwarranted fetter on even convening a meeting is another matter of patent legality.

"Rupturing the over hundred years of Tata Trust and Tata Sons established hyphenated relationship and divorcing one from the other seems unthinkable.

"Ignoring the unvarying precondition of Trust unanimity in voting & the clear veto in provisions applied without cavil for decades appears patently unjustified. Sadly, the Supreme Court judgement in Tata-Mistry which clearly gave Tata Trusts primacy in the relationship with Tata Sons, upheld the special Articles in this regard in the Tata Sons articles and spoke of the fiduciary duty to millions of Indians, seems to have been selectively forgotten," he said.

Singhvi said that, in the absence of collegiality and conviviality, these and many other related issues, unfortunately, can only have legal solutions.