Proxy advisory firm asks RBI to reject Tata Sons’ application

MUMBAI: InGovern Research has called on the RBI to reject Tata Sons’ application to surrender its financial licence, describing the move as a “strategic manoeuvre to sidestep mandatory listing obligations” and to order the company to list on domestic exchanges by March 2027.

InGovern argued that the application, filed in March 2024, is “dead on arrival” based on RBI’s April 2026 directions, and that the expiry of the September 2025 listing deadline had rendered it both “substantively ineligible and procedurally time-barred.”

It warned that without a listing, Tata Sons would remain beyond the reach of Sebi’s disclosure regime, an oversight gap it described as untenable for a holdco that controls systemic listed entities like TCS. Without it, related-party transactions go ungoverned and group-level capital allocation remains opaque to the broader market.

Tata Sons had sought to exit the CIC regulatory perimeter by repaying over Rs 20,000 crore in standalone debt, arguing it had renounced access to public funds. However, the RBI’s April 29 directions clarified that public funds encompass direct as well as indirect access through group companies — a definition that, InGovern said, strikes down the “standalone deleveraging” argument Tata Sons had relied upon to justify its exit.
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