Disclose status of family properties: Bombay HC to Vijaypat Singhania

The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked business tycoon Vijaypat Singhania to disclose on oath the status of family properties listed in a 1998 settlement agreement between him and his estranged son Madhupati Singhania.

The bench issued this direction while hearing a petition filed by Mr Singhania’s Singapore-based grandchildren, who have challenged a 1998 settlement agreement between their father and grandfather, the chairman emeritus and owner of the Raymond Group.

The judges were hearing an appeal filed by four grandchildren of Mr Singhania against a single judge order of August 2015 of the Bombay high court that refused interim relief to them in a suit they filed seeking share in the family property.

The appellants — Raivathari (18), Ananya (29), Rasaalika (26) and Tarini (20) — are children of Madhupati Singhania, who left the family’s Mumbai home 17 years ago along with his wife Anuradha, and settled in Singapore.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Syed asked Mr Singhania to file an affidavit on the status of properties mentioned in the family settlement by June 22. The court has also asked the petitioners to specify their claim on the property.

The appellants had sought a direction to Mr Singhania not to deal with any property included in the 1998 family settlement, which he and his estranged son Madhupati Singhania had entered in.

The appellants argued in the suit that as per the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, Mr Singhania could not have dealt in any property registered in the name of his minor grandchildren without a court order.

However, Mr Singhania’s counsel opposed their plea on the grounds that if the property was a joint family property, a minor’s consent or a court order was not required to deal with the “undivided property”.