Cyrus Mistry dies at 54 in road accident, here's all about ex-Tata Sons' chairman

Former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry passed away in a road accident in Maharashtra's Palghar on Sunday. The Mercedes, which had Mistry and three others on board reportedly crashed into a divider on a bridge on the Surya River.

The car was en route from Ahmedabad to Mumbai when it crashed, killing two-- Cyrus Mistry and one Jahangir Binshah Pandole. The other two-- Anahita Pandole, a top doctor at Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital, and Darius Pandole, the Managing Director and CEO of JM Financial Private Equity have been injured and shifted to a hospital in Gujarat where they are presently undergoing treatment.

Prima facie it appears that Cyrus Mistry died due to severe head injuries during the car crash. His mortel remains are being shifted to Mumbai's JJ Hospital, where the post-mortem will be conducted. 

Who was Cyrus Mistry?

Born to a Parsi family in Mumbai on July 4, 1968, Cyrus Mistry was the younger son of Indian billionaire and construction magnate Pallonji Mistry and his wife Patsy Perin Dubash, an Irish. After completing his schooling at Cathedral & John Connon School in South Mumbai in India, Cyrus moved to London, United Kingdom.

In 1990, he got his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Imperial College London, the University of London. Cyrus later studied at London Business School and was awarded International Executive Master in management from the same University in 1996. 

The Mistry family had been shareholders in the Tata Sons since the 1930s. Cyrus, who was the Director of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group since 1991, joined Tata Sons on September 1, 2006. He served as a Director of Tata Elxsi Limited, from September 24, 1990, to October 26, 2009, and was a Director of Tata Power Co. Ltd until September 18, 2006, when he took over as the Chairman of the Tata Sons in December 2012.

The Sixth Chairman of the conglomerate, Cyrus was ousted from the post in October 2016. Months thereafter, he was also removed as a Director on the board of Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata Group firms. 

However, Mistry was reinstated by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) after his ouster was declared “illegal” and the appointment of his successor N. Chandrasekharan was quashed. Rejecting the 2019 order by the National Law Tribunal, the Supreme Court on March 26, 2021, dismissed the appeals by Cyrus Mistry and upheld his removal as the Chairman of the $100 billion salt-to-software conglomerate.