Mumbai and Bengaluru, Sept. 21 -- Last Thursday in Mumbai, the Tata Sons boardroom was tense. The much-anticipated meeting wrapped up earlier than planned, lasting only about three hours. At first, it looked like the directors had not reached an agreement on the two principal agenda items.

At 1:55 pm on 17 September, an executive who was part of a team briefed by Tata Trusts chair, Noel Tata, on what had transpired at the meeting, sent two messages to a few people: "Meeting done", "No resolutions".

Noel was under the impression that the board had not reached a decision on the Reserve Bank of India's 11 September directive asking Tata Sons to go public, or reassessing N. Chandrasekaran's tenure. The holding company's chairman had announc...