HC reserves judgment on Birlas cavetable interest

Justice Kalyanjyoti Sengupta reserved the judgment on the application filed by Rajendra Singh Lodha seeking discharge of four Birla family member's caveats in the case of grant of probate of the will of Priyamvada Birla made in 1999.

Lodha had earlier filed the probate petition for Priyamvada Birla's will.

The hearing of the application started on August 25, 2004.

The Birla lawyers were today permitted to reply afresh to the arguments made by the Lodha side.

S B Mookherjee, P K Ray, Shayam Sarkar, S N Mookherjee, Sanjeev Banerjee and Pramit Ray, counsels for Birlas, disputed the claims made by Lodha.

Anindya Mitra, counsel for Lodha, had argued that the concept of alleged mutual will of M P Birla and Priyamvada Devi Birla made in 1982 destroyed the case of caveatable interest of Birlas in the Priyamvada Birla's will of 1999.

The counsel for Birlas said that a mutual will became irrevocable if one of the will makers died.

The counsel relied on a judgment delivered by another high court on the same issue, where the court held that in case of mutual wills, it could be revoked only if all the makers were alive.

In case of death of one of the makers of the will, the other survivor does not have the right to revoke that mutual will.

R S Lodha had applied for discharge of four caveats in the names of four Birla family members, but no argument was advanced by Lodha counsel against the caveatable interest of G P Birla.

The Birla counsels disputed another argument of the Lodha side, which stated that as M P Birla had never acted as executor of the will of Priyamvada Birla made in 1982, the question of replacing M P Birla after his death as executor of the will could not stand.

The Birla lawyers contended that at the time of making the will the name of the executor was there, so at the time of taking probate of that will, the death of one executor was enough reason for the other executors to decide on nomination of new executor in place of the deceased executor. The Birla counsel said whether the dead person acted as executor or not was irrelevant. The Birla lawyers said the Indian Succession Act was silent about caveatable interest.

But Indian courts of law had a liberal approach. If any person had any interest, the person was recognised as having caveatable interest.

Justice Sengupta directed that the application filed by Birlas seeking discharge of caveat filed by R S Lodha in the probate of 1982 mutual will be listed for hearing on December 15.