Priyamvada case assigned to new judge

The acting chief justice of Calcutta High Court on Tuesday assigned the probate cases relating to Priyamvada Birla's will to justice Kalyanjyoti Sengupta. Justice Sengupta will hear the case any day.

The case will be listed before Justice Sengupta. The court will then fix the date of hearing. On July 26, Justice Subhra Kamal Mukherjee released the case from his jurisdiction on "personal grounds" and ordered his office to put the matter before the acting Chief Justice with a request to assign the case to any other judge who could hear the case.

Meanwhile, the two sisters of M P Birla, Lakshmi Newar and Radha Mohta, who had filed caveats in the probate case on July 26, were today served notices relating to the case. If the two wished, they could appear in the court and join in the battle in the law court. The former was a resident of Kolkata and the latter of Mumbai.

Priyamvada Birla, in her last will and testament, passed on all the assets of the M P Birla group, estimated at Rs 5000 crore, to R S Lodha, co-chairman of the group.

Following the demise of Priyamvada Birla on July 3, Lodha filed probate petition in the High Court for grant of probate to secure the property as outlined in the will.

The Birla family reacted by filing caveats in the courts of law, so that the probate case was not heard without giving notice to the Birlas. The Birlas filed caveats under 17 names.

Lodha challenged the legal right of K K Birla, S K Birla, B K Birla and Y Birla to file caveat in the probate proceedings. Lodha, in its petition stated that under the Hindu Succession Act, those four Birlas had no to right to put any question as to who would get the probate on Priyamvada Birla's will.