It just won’t go away, the Kapur family spat over a Rs 30,000 crore inheritance.
On Tuesday afternoon – the mother of businessman , whose death playing polo in England in June last year triggered this bickering – moved the to stop the board of Raghuvanshi Investments Private Limited, or RIPL, from meeting on May 18. Kapur, 80, called the meeting a ‘fraudulent attempt to bypass court-ordered mediation’.
RIPL holds a major part of the disputed family estate.
The plea was mentioned before a bench led by Justice JB Pardiwala, who remarked drily on the flood of petition and counter-petition between squabbling members of one of the richest families in the country. “We have entered into an arena. Mahabharat will look very small (compared to it). We will look into it,” he said and listed it for hearing Thursday, i.e., May 14.
Meanwhile, Rani Kapur also sought directions to Priya Kapur – who is Sunjay Kapur’s third wife – to restrain from interfering with the functioning of the family trust” till mediation is completed.
On May 1 counsel for Priya Kapur called the Delhi High Court’s interim order – directing status quo on the estate as ‘routine’ and ‘balanced’ – and stressed preservation of assets had been voluntarily offered by his client during the proceedings.
The mediation pertains to the RK Trust and companies linked to Sona Comstar and the Kapur family; Rani Kapur had filed a civil suit in the High Court seeking to declare the trust “illegal, void, and the result of fraud, forgery, and undue influence”.
The process does not cover the late businessman’s will, which is the subject of a separate legal fight between Priya Kapur and Kian and Samaira Kapoor, the children Sunjay Kapur had with his second wife, actor Karisma Kapoor.
Nevertheless, all family members involved in the dispute have agreed to appear, including Kiaan and Samaira Kapoor, who have accused Priya Kapur of forging Sunjay Kapur’s will.
Yet another case involves Priya Kapur and Sunjay Kapur’s sister, Mandhira Kapur Smith, and a web of allegedly defamatory remarks. In February an exasperated Delhi High Court demanded the two sides “conduct themselves with dignity”. “We expect you not to make any public statements against each other… this is what the court expects,” the quarrelling duo was told.