Plea questioning Tata Trust structure withdrawn from Bombay HC

The petitioner, a 61-year-old Thane resident, Suresh Patilkhede, had claimed that the premier public charitable trust is in violation of a 2025 amendment to the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act that caps the number of life trustees.

The petition said that the number of life trustees at any point cannot exceed one-fourth of the total number of trustees as per the Act but out of a total of six trustees, three were life trustees.

Patilkhede had submitted before the court that he had emailed the charity commissioner through his lawyers on April 18, 2026 but no action or inquiry was initiated. Upon inquiry, the court learned that Patilkhede did not make the representation to the commissioner, to which the bench expressed displeasure.

The petitioner stated that the Trust has six trustees: Jimmy Naval Tata, Jehangir H C Jehangir, Noel Naval Tata, Venu Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, and senior advocate Darius Khambata. Of these, three are continuing as life trustees, he claimed, adding that this was “contrary to the mandatory statutory limit” on the number of life trustees.

Lawyers for the board members had opposed the petition stating that a notification was issued to state that the 2025 amendment could not be applied retrospectively.