MUMBAI, Mar 27: Tata Trusts Wednesday said
group veteran NA Soonawala has stepped down from the
trusteeship of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trusts and the Sir Ratan
Tata Trusts due to health and advancing age.
Tata Trusts is a string of non-profits and owns 66
percent in the diversified conglomerate Tata Sons and is
fighting a litigation with the tax department for allegedly
over-paying its past chief executive R Venkatramanan.
The 83-year-old Soonawala, who has served at various
positions in the Tata group including as the vice-chairman of
Tata Sons and as a close confidante of the group patriarch
Ratan Tata, has “expressed his desire to retire from these
trusts due to his health and advanced age,” an official
statement said.
Ratan Tata expressed his “personal thanks to Soonawala
for his colleagueship over the years and wished him good
health in the years ahead”, the statement added.
“The trustees acknowledge the significant contribution
Soonawala has made as a trustee and to the group over the
years and respect his desire to step down from the trusts,”
the statement read.
The retirement comes, it can be noted, on the heels of
Venkatramanan being forced out of the trusts in Janaury
following the income tax notice on his commerical level
salaries and threatenening to end the tax exemptions that the
country’s largest and oldest charity was enjoying as a public
trust. The matter is subjudice now.
Venkatramanan has since been accommodated into the
group outside the country. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
