Did Ratan Tata rebuff an Indian minister asking him to meet with Pakistani businessmen?

Question

Ratan Tata is an Indian businessman, and the former chairman of the Tata Group. A viral post on Facebook applauds him for refusing to meet with two Pakistani industrialists wanting to do business with him in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and for rebuking an unnamed Indian Minister who asked him to meet with them.

Few months after 26/11, Taj group of Hotels owned by TATAs launched their biggest tender ever for remodeling all their Hotels in India and abroad. Some of the companies who applied for that tender were also Pakistanis.

To make their bid stronger, two big industrialists from Pakistan visited Bombay House ( Head office of Tata ) in Mumbai without an appointment to meet up with Ratan Tata since he was not giving them any prior appointment. They were made to sit at the reception of Bombay house and after a few hours a message was conveyed to them that Ratan Tata is busy and can not meet anyone without an appointment. Frustrated, these two Paki industrialists went to Delhi and thru their High Commission met up with a Minister. The minister immediately called up Ratan Tata requesting him to meet up with the two Paki Industrialists and consider their tender "enthusiastically ly". Ratan Tata replied..."you could be shameless, I am not" and put the phone down.

Did Tata rebuff an Indian minister encouraging him to meet with Pakistani businessmen?

Answer 1

The Hoax Or Fact site looked into a similar claim - that, for nationalistic reasons, Ratan Tata rejected a Pakistani offer to buy Tata Sumo Grande cars.

They conclude it is fake news.

any kind of high profile business like this between India and Pakistan is officially restricted by Government of India. Therefore, there is no question of any such trade proposal between Pakistan Government and the Indian company Tata Group.

They quote a Tata spokesman as saying:

“The news is incorrect – the company has not received any such order, and the trade between India & Pakistan, automobiles are in the restricted list. Hence, the question of Pakistan having placed any order with Tata Motors for automobiles does not arise.”