Ratan Tata fought bitter legal battle to wrest back control of Tata Group from Cyrus Mistry

Tata Group's chairman emeritus and veteran industrialist Ratan Tata fought a bitter legal battle up to the Supreme Court for almost four years with Cyrus Mistry of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and succeeded in removing him as the executive chairman of the salt-to-software conglomerate.

Tata, a recipient of Padma Vibhushan, died at a Mumbai hospital on Wednesday night. He was 86.

His bitter rival and former executive chairman of the Tata Group, Mistry, died in a car crash in Maharashtra's Palghar district, near Mumbai, on September 4, 2022.

Mistry had succeeded Tata as the chairman of Tata Sons Private Limited (TSPL) in 2012, but was dramatically ousted four years later, triggering one of the ugliest boardroom battles in the country's biggest business conglomerate that brought top lawyers face to face in courts, including in the Supreme Court.

The fight for control over the Tata Group was initially fought in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). It then moved to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and finally, came to the apex court.

The top court, on March 26, 2021, upheld Mistry's removal as the executive chairman of the Tata Group and brought the curtains down on the bitter public and legal battle.

Setting aside the NCLAT's order, which had restored Mistry to the top post, a bench headed by the then Chief Justice SA Bobde had also dismissed a plea of the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group seeking separation of ownership interests in TSPL.