Vijay Singh has officially stepped down as a Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) trustee on August 14, marking the end of his second term. According to latest reports, Singh cited a disquieting atmosphere after Ratan Tata's passing as a reason for leaving. However, he will continue as a trustee for the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust for another year, maintaining his involvement in the Tata philanthropic network. The departure comes at a time when the SRTT has been unable to convene board meetings after the Maharashtra charity commissioner restrained it from holding meetings pending a decision on a complaint relating to the appointment of perpetual trustees and other related issues.
An ordinance by the Maharashtra charity commissioner that came into effect on 1 September 2025 introduced two important rules governing all trusts registered in the state. As reported by Mint, the regulator capped the number of permanent or lifetime trustees at a fourth of the total board and mandated that all trustee appointments and reappointments require unanimous, not majority, approval. For SRTT, which has three permanent trustees including Noel and Jimmy Tata, and Jehangir, this means the charity commissioner ordered the trusts board not to hold any meetings until it completes its probe into complaints about the trust's composition. The SRTT board comprises chairman Noel N Tata, Venu Srinivasan, Vijay Singh, Jimmy N Tata, Jehangir HC Jehangir and Darius Khambata.
SRTT and SDTT together control 51.4% of Tata Sons, while the wider Tata Trusts own 65.9% of the Tata Group holding company. According to Mint reports, Singh will also face reappointment to the SDTT board in December, having been inducted on 12 December 2018. A former defence secretary, Singh is one of two vice-chairmen of Tata Trusts, the other being TVS Motor Company's chairman emeritus, Venu Srinivasan. The other four SRTT trustees are Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata, Ratan Tata's younger brother Jimmy Tata, lawyer Darius Khambata, and Pune-based businessman and philanthropist Jehangir H.C. Jehangir.
The potential exit of Singh from the Tata Group would mark a second significant board change in the philanthropic entities' composition in the past 22 months since Noel Tata took over as chairman of Tata Trusts on 11 October 2024. In May, Singh and fellow vice chairman Venu Srinivasan stepped down from the Tata Education and Development Trust (TEDT) after trustee Mehli Mistry opposed their reappointments. Mistry had challenged the eligibility of Singh and Srinivasan to serve as trustees of the Bai Hirabai Jamsetji Tata Navsari Charitable Institution, arguing that they did not meet the 1923 trust deed's requirements that trustees should be practising Parsi Zoroastrians and permanent residents of Mumbai. The trusts have witnessed series of disagreements over board appointments and governance, including differences between Noel and Srinivasan, and Noel's objection to N. Chandrasekaran's third term as Tata Sons' chairman starting February 2027.
