 "Tata Trusts battle: Why Mehli Mistry, Ratan Tata’s close confidante, has been ousted")
In the Tata Trusts war, the first casualty has been claimed and it’s none other than 65-year-old Mehli Mistry, once regarded as one of Ratan Tata’s closest confidants.
On Tuesday (October 28), a majority of trustees voted against Mistry’s reappointment to the boards of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which together comprise a 51 per cent stake in Tata Sons.
This effectively ends Mistry’s tenure at one of India’s most influential philanthropic bodies and underscores growing differences within the trusts’ leadership over appointments and governance matters.
But who exactly is Mehli Mistry? How has he been ousted from the Tata Trusts? What does all of this mean? We explain it all.
Who is Mehli Mistry?
Appointed as a trustee to the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust in 2022, Mehli Mistry has a history with the Tatas for a very long time and is believed to have been a staunch supporter of late Ratan Tata since 2000.
Mistry is the first cousin of the late Cyrus Mistry and a director of the Meher Pallonji Group, which has business interests in industrial painting, dredging, stevedoring, logistics solutions, shipping, finance and automobile dealerships among others.
It is reported that Mistry and Ratan Tata shared a close, decades-long friendship with both residing in the same south Mumbai building for years.
As per an ET Now report, Tata appointed Mistry as a director of his personal investment firm, RNT Associates, in 2023 and named him one of four executors of his will in 2024, alongside Darius Khambata and Tata’s half-sisters, Shireen and Deanna Jejeebhoy. Also, he reportedly left personal effects to Mistry, including Alibaug house and other heirloom firearms once owned by past Tata leaders.
Over the past three years, Mistry has reportedly emerged as a leading voice pushing for governance reforms and greater transparency in Tata Sons.
So, what happened to Mistry at Tuesday’s vote?
On Tuesday (October 28), a vote was up to decide on Mehli Mistry being a permanent trustee of the Tata Trusts. His current three-year term was expiring on October 28.
Earlier, Tata Trusts had unanimously reappointed Venu Srinivasan as a lifetime trustee, with the backing of Mehli Mistry, and all eyes had now turned to Mistry.
However, today, as per sources, three trustees — Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata, Venu Srinivasan, chairman of the TVS Group and former Defence Secretary Vijay Singh — opposed Mistry’s reappointment.
The _Indian Express r_eports that at the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Darius Khambata, a Mumbai-based lawyer and former Citibank India CEO Pramit Jhaveri supported Mistry’s continuation, while at the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Khambata and Pune-based philanthropist Jehangir HC Jehangir voted in his favour.
But what led to Mistry’s ouster Tata Trusts?
The ouster of Mehli Mistry stems from the tussle that is taking place over the appointment of trustees at the Tata Trusts and rifts within Tata Trusts, with a faction seen as aligned with Chairman Noel Tata and another group led by Mistry, comprising Ratan Tata loyalists.
This flashpoint emerged a month ago when the Mehli Mistry-led faction opposed Vijay Singh’s reappointment as nominee director on the board of Tata Sons, the group’s principal holding company. This went against convention at the company; until this vote, appointments were done unanimously. But trustees broke from convention and voted by majority decision.
This split vote exposed the discord that lies within the revered institution in India. Following it, Singh resigned from the Tata Sons board in the second week of September 2025. Then, in retaliation, Srinivasan and Tata opposed Mistry’s candidature for Tata Sons board.
What comes next in the Tata Trusts battle?
This outcome marks a clear shift, indicating that the opposition against Noel Tata will cease to exist in the Trusts going forward. This is of utmost importance as leadership and trustees within the Trusts also hold sway on decisions of the Tata Sons board.
It also paves the way for the discord within the Trusts to become a legal battle with most media reports that Mistry is most likely to contest this decision in court, given that at a joint meeting of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust on October 17, it was agreed that all current trustees would be made permanent.
As per the resolution passed by Tata Trusts, any trustee whose tenure expires will be reappointed by the concerned trust without limitation on the period of such reappointment, subject to applicable laws. In effect, trustees are now eligible for life-long appointments.
But clearly this has not been followed in Mistry’s case.
And will this ouster affect the functioning of the Tata Group? Shriram Subramanian, managing director and founder InGovern, told NDTV Profit, “The rift at Tata Trusts would impact strategic decisions at Tata Sons. On a day-to-day basis, Tata Sons is unlikely to be disrupted but strategic decisions will be affected.”
It’s truly ironic that Mistry’s ouster comes in October, the same month when his late cousin Cyrus Mistry was removed as Tata Sons chairman in 2016.
With inputs from agencies
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