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Following Seshan’s term, the rule of majority has always prevailed. On the rare occasion when two commissioners, the late Navin Chawla and SY Qureshi, concurred in 2009 against then-CEC N Gopalaswami’s decision on serving a notice to Sonia Gandhi for receiving the Order of Leopold in 2006 from the Belgian government, the CEC was overruled.

During the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Ashok Lavasa disagreed with then CEC Sunil Arora about giving a clean chit to the PM and home minister for alleged violations of the model code of conduct. Lavasa subsequently insisted he would not attend meetings unless his minority decisions were recorded.

It is therefore important to know whether CEC Gyanesh Kumar in fact held formal three-member meetings with documented minutes on contentious issues.

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Tata September Coup

Those who choose to view the confrontation between the Tata Trusts and the runaway Tata Sons Board as a mere personality clash between the trusts’ chairperson, Noel Tata, and Tata Sons executive chairperson, N Chandrasekaran, fail to read between the lines. It is fairly obvious that powerful interests are at work to hobble Noel Tata, who seems to be running a three-legged race against unseen opponents who have strong tailwinds propelling them forward.

September was indeed a star-crossed month for the legendary House of Tata with a pincer attack from all sides. Surely, not just a coincidence? To begin with, the RBI, on September 11, rejected the Tata Sons’ application to surrender its Core Investment Company (CIC) status, even though the Tatas had faithfully completed a significant financial restructuring by clearing Rs 21,813 crore of debt in order to ensure that the holding company had no access to public funding. The Tatas followed the precedent set by Shanghvi Finance, which owns Sun Pharma, and had been permitted to surrender its registration and get regulatory relief in 2023. However, the RBI immediately rejected the Tata Sons’ application for exemption from its revised 2022 regulations for the public listing of Tata Sons. The RBI simply changed the goal post!

The second shock was a sudden U-turn by the Tata Sons Board from its long-stated position of opposing public listing of the group. The board mysteriously decided not to challenge the RBI’s September 11 decision. A month earlier, Chandrasekharan had informed the board that he would be stepping down as chairperson when his second extended term expired in February, but on September 17, the Tata Sons board voted to reappoint Chandrasekharan, despite the objections of the Sir Dorabji Tata and Sir Ratanji Tata trusts that own 66 per cent of Tata Sons (It is unlikely that any court would eventually rule the proceedings of this meeting legal, but litigation can drag on).

In September, the Maharashtra charities commissioner, mysteriously, prohibited the Sir Ratanji Trust from holding a board meeting and taking formal decisions while the commission conducted an inquiry into  frivolous charges trumped up by disgruntled persons being eased out of Tata trusts. Now trustee Venu Srinivasan, who falls in this category, has demanded the charities commissioner inquire into the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust as well. For over 150 years, founder Jamsetji Tata’s simple mandate to his descendants was to do good for India. Do those at the helm of government reciprocate this trust?

What’s in a Number?

Famous personalities often apply for numbers for motorcar license plates that they deem lucky. For instance, Amitabh Bachchan is believed to favour numbers that end in two/ add up to two; Sanjay Dutt opts for 4545 and Shahrukh Khan 555. The late NTR chose 9999, as his descendants now do. Arun Jaitley’s preference was 6666. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay has started a new trend. In his 2024 film, The Greatest of All Time (GOAT), the hero drove a limousine with the number plate TN CM 2026. Seeing how prophetic that number turned out to be, Vijay’s ally Thol Thirumavalavan, leader of the VCK, has been in a video-shoot in a car with a TN 07 CM 2031 number plate. Now NTK leader Seeman has applied for the number TN 08 CM 2031.