Tata Trusts case: Bombay High Court allows withdrawal of writ petition challenging trustee structure

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday allowed the withdrawal of the writ petition challenging Sir Ratan Tata Trust's life trustee structure filed by Suresh Tulsiram Patilkhede, with the oral observation that the petition lacked any locus. The petition been withdrawn from the Bombay High Court, with the bench observing that the petitioner has not been fair.

The division bench of Justice Advait Sethna and Justice Sandesh Dadasaheb Patil, while allowing the withdrawal of the petition, observed that the petitioner was not the original complainant in the underlying case before the charity commissioner and failed to mention the original complainant.

The detailed order was not uploaded by the time the story was filed.


Before the court’s order, Senior Advocates Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Janak Dwarkadas appeared for the Tata Trust and other respondents and argued that the petitioner lacked the locus to file the petition here.

The writ petition, filed by Suresh Tulsiram Patilkhede, argued that the trust’s current board composition breaches statutory limits introduced by the Maharashtra Public Trust (Second Amendment) Act, 2025, and that any decision it takes is therefore in violation of the law.

The petitioner further said all decisions made subsequent to September 1, 2025, should be deemed invalid on the same grounds.

The writ petition seeks a stay of the SRTT meeting, which is now scheduled for May 16.

Earlier, on May 7, the petitioner had approached the court, which refused to grant any interim relief and, in an oral direction, said he could approach a vacation bench for any further relief.

The agenda for the proposed SRTT meeting includes reconsidering Tata Trusts’ representation on the board of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group entities. Currently, trust nominees on the board of Tata Sons are Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata and vice chairman Venu Srinivasan.

SRTT holds 23.56% equity in Tata Sons. Altogether, Tata Trusts own 66%.

The Maharashtra Public Trusts (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025, inserted a new section, 30A(2), in the legislation governing trusts. It capped the number of perpetual trustees at one-fourth of a trust’s total strength if the trust deed is silent on the matter or contains no specific provision regarding the issue. The rule that took effect on September 1 last year requires existing trusts to maintain the cap at all times.

According to the petition, SRTT currently has six trustees, of whom three—Jimmy Naval Tata, Jehangir HC Jehangir, and Noel Naval Tata—serve as life trustees. This constitutes 50% of the board, exceeding the statutory ceiling of 25%.

The petition has named the State of Maharashtra, Charity Commissioner, SRTT, as well as trustees Noel Tata, Venu Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, Jimmy N Tata, Jehangir HC Jehangir and Darius Khambata as respondents.