Indian tycoon Noel Tata told by finance minister to settle Tata feud

India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has urged Noel Tata, the chairman of the charities that control the Tata Group, and the leadership of holding company Tata Sons to settle their boardroom fight privately and quickly, saying the dispute is too important to the Indian economy to be fought in public.

"It cannot be spilling out like this in the public," Sitharaman said on Nov. 2 at the Financial Express Leadership Awards in Mumbai. "This is a very critical component to the Indian economy, and therefore it has to be amicably settled among themselves."

She called the dispute "very delicate" and said it would take "a lot of commercial and business acumen" to resolve. "Business cordiality will have to work," she said, adding that she hoped the two sides would "talk it out to make sure that it comes back quickly to some normalcy." Asked whether the government would bring them to the table, she declined to say. "It is a rather sensitive issue; it is not something I would want to quickly comment on," she said.

Sitharaman also praised the role of India's Parsi community, the small Zoroastrian minority to which the Tata family belongs. "I know the brand value of Tata, the contribution that the Parsi community has made to make Tata a huge global brand," she said.

A split over the chairman and a listing

The fight pits Tata Trusts, which own about 66% of Tata Sons, against the Tata Sons board led by Chairman N. Chandrasekaran. It came into the open at a Tata Sons board meeting on Sept. 17, about a week after the Reserve Bank of India rejected the company's request to stop being regulated as a core investment company, a ruling that leaves it facing a mandatory stock market listing.

At that meeting the board decided to move toward a listing and approved a third term for Chandrasekaran. Noel Tata, one of the trusts' two nominees on the board, was the only director to vote against both. The trusts' other nominee, Venu Srinivasan, the chairman emeritus of TVS Motor Co., voted with the majority. The trusts have since called the reappointment a "legal nullity."

The Shapoorji Pallonji Group, the second-largest shareholder in Tata Sons with about 18.4%, wants a listing to unlock the value of its stake. Noel Tata wants Tata Sons to stay private. He has written to the Tata Sons board asking it to consider, at a meeting scheduled for Nov. 26, a restructuring that would take the company outside the central bank's listing rules and a plan to pay the Shapoorji Pallonji Group about ₹25,000 crore ($2.6 billion).

Exit of a trustee

Sitharaman's comments came on the same day that senior lawyer Darius Khambata, a trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, the two largest Tata charities, said he would not seek reappointment when his term ends on Nov. 9. In a letter to Noel Tata, Khambata said "the sad events of 17 September 2026, a day that will live in infamy, have sullied Tata Sons' reputation." He said seeking a new term, which needs the consent of all other trustees, would compromise his independence.

Khambata, a former advocate general of Maharashtra state, had backed Noel Tata's opposition to a listing. His exit leaves the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust with five trustees: Noel Tata, his son Neville Tata, former Titan Co. Managing Director Bhaskar Bhat, and vice chairmen Srinivasan and Vijay Singh, who have both clashed with Noel Tata.

The trusts have been divided for more than a year. In October 2025, Noel Tata, Srinivasan and Singh voted against renewing the trusteeship of Mehli Mistry, a cousin of the late Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry and a longtime confidant of Ratan Tata, ending his term. That same month, Sitharaman and Home Minister Amit Shah met Noel Tata and Chandrasekaran in New Delhi and urged them to restore stability.

The dispute has also turned political. On Oct. 29, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi wrote that "Tata is being criminally destroyed, and no business leader dares say a word." Sitharaman replied by accusing him of politicizing the matter. "Are you trying to incite our business leaders to join you in spreading distrust and toxicity?" she wrote.

Noel Tata, a son of Naval Tata, became chairman of Tata Trusts in October 2024 after his half-brother Ratan Tata died. He earlier ran the group's retail and trading businesses, including fashion chain Trent Ltd., and turns 70 on Nov. 12, the retirement age for non-executive directors of Tata companies.

Figures were converted at ₹95.2 to the dollar.