New Delhi, Oct. 19 -- The Tata Group is no stranger to trouble. The 157-year-old industrial group has weathered multiple storms-both external and internal-in the past. A new in-house leadership crisis and shareholding dilemma is now rocking its boardrooms and will severely test its resilience. On trial is also the group's famed governance model, which has acquired some dents over the past two decades or so. One thing is inescapable: this is a full-blown leadership crisis and resolving it will be key to assuring the group a durable and stable future.

Internal dissension and public sparring among trustees of Tata Trusts, which collectively hold over 65% in the group's holding company, Tata Sons, has exposed the edifice's structural faults....