MUMBAI: Till recently, Amogh Kaloti, who works under the law and judiciary department headed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, was barely known outside Maharashtra’s legal circles. A low-profile district judge who was appointed Maharashtra’s charity commissioner in Feb 2024, he has been pitched into the country’s most high-profile corporate battle in recent years.In May 2026, acting on a complaint by Venu Srinivasan, Kaloti directed the Sir Ratan Tata Trust to stop holding board meetings and ordered a probe into the affairs of the trusts that own 66.4% of the Tata group.A lawyer by training and practice but now working as a bureaucrat, the 50-year-old Kaloti hails from Amravati, where he completed his education and practiced as an advocate in the district and sessions court. Both as a lawyer and as a judge, he was known to be soft-spoken, guarded and with a reputation to go strictly by the book.Kaloti was appointed district and assistant sessions judge in 2013. He worked as district judge at Buldhana, at city civil and sessions court in Mumbai, and sessions court in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. He was posted principal district and sessions judge at Washim.Kaloti did not respond to calls and text messages from TOI. Officials said while Kaloti is charity commissioner, the case is usually heard by an assistant commissioner or deputy commissioner. “After hearing, an appeal can be made before the charity commissioner. Usually it’s a slow process and takes 3 to 6 months for hearings to conclude. Given the sensitive nature of the matter, even the hearings before the junior charity commissioners could take considerable time,” the official said.The charity commissioner is a quasi-judicial authority established under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act of 1950 and plays a crucial role in administering public trusts in Mumbai. The rank is equivalent to a district judge. His powers include registering trusts, investigating financial misconduct, suspending trustees, and managing hospital charity beds.Of three Tata-related matters before him, he has given a ruling on one. On Sept 2, he held the transfer of shares in 1989 from the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust to Noel Tata’s father Naval Tata to be legally valid. Two other complaints pending before him are by Venu Srinivasan against Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) regarding number of permanent trustees on its board, and another by Mehli Mistry against the Trusts for his removal and seeking a probe into their governance practices.
