New Delhi, Oct. 3 -- If the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) October monetary policy left people and businesses looking for a rate cut glum, spare a thought for Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group.

It has been caught in RBI's regulatory cleft stick, though not for any fault of its own. The privately held firm has been defined by RBI rules as a core investment company (CIC) and slotted as a non-banking finance company (NBFC) in the 'upper layer'; as RBI rules mandate, companies in this category must change their ownership status by going public and listing their shares on a stock market.

The deadline for doing that was 30 September. While Tata Sons had applied for a change in classification more than a year ago, RBI offered no ...