The feud over late industrialist Sunjay Kapur’s estate took a new turn after his mother, Rani Kapur, moved the Delhi high court, seeking to declare a family trust named after her as null and void, alleging it was fraudulently constituted and used to illegally transfer her assets.
As per the latest update by news agency ANI, Justice Vikas Mahajan of the Delhi High Court on Wednesday recused himself from hearing a civil suit filed by Rani Kapur.
New update on the dispute
The Court has now directed that the matter be listed before another Bench on Thursday (January 29). The court refused to pass an order immediately directing status quo with respect to the Rani Kapur Family Trust, which existed prior to the death of late businessman Sunjay Kapur. A bench of justice Mini Pushkarna, however, issued summons in Rani’s suit seeking to cancel the RK Family trust and sought the response of Priya Kapur and 22 others.
What was Rani Kapur’s plea?
Rani Kapur had alleged that the trust was created without her informed consent and resulted in her complete exclusion from assets that originally belonged to her. The suit further alleges that she was made to sign documents without being properly informed of their contents or legal implications, and that some documents were signed in blank. These acts, she claims, were part of a larger design to restructure the family estate through the trust to her detriment.
Rani Kapur’s plea said that upon receiving photocopies of the trust deed, she discovered that the trust assets were meant to be used exclusively for the benefit of Sunjay Kapur during his lifetime, entirely excluding her. After his demise, 60% of the trust corpus was earmarked for the benefit of his third wife, Priya Kapur, while the remaining portion was to be utilised for the benefit of her grandchildren-Samaira Kapur and Kiaan Kapur (Sunjay Kapur’s children with Bollywood actor Karishma Kapoor) and Azairus Kapur (his son with Priya Kapur).
Sunjay Kapur, the chairperson of Sona Comstar, died of cardiac arrest while playing polo in London last year. He was earlier married to designer Nandita Mahtani, and later to actor Karisma Kapoor, with whom he has two children, Samaira and Kiaan. He married model-actor and businesswoman Priya Kapur in 2017, with whom he had a son, Azarius.