'Priyamvada, sole owner of MP Birla assets'

Rajendra S Lodha, the chartered accountant who has staked claim on the Rs 5000 crore (Rs 50 billion) assets of the M P Birla group, stated, on Thursday, before the Calcutta high court that Priyamvada Birla had absolute right over the group's property.

Dismissing the claim of caveatable interest of the Birlas in the matter, Lodha's solicitor Anindya Mitra submitted before Justice K J Sengupta that the only persons who could be said to be interested parties in the matter were the two sisters of M P Birla.

Birla vs Lodha: War over a will

He claimed that M P Birla had died without making a will and Priyamvada by virtue of being his wife inherited all the property owned by her husband.

If M P Birla had made the 1982 will, as claimed by the Birlas, the property was bequeathed to Priyamvada according to the said will and hence she had the absolute right over the group property, Mitra submitted.

Lodha, an auditor of a number of Birla companies, had claimed control over the group on the basis a purported will of Priyamvada Birla, who died on July 3.

The Birlas challenged the purported will by which the entire property was bequeathed to Lodha, claiming that M P Birla and his wife, Priyamvada, had made mutual wills according to which the entire estate was to go to the charities.

Apart from four members of the Birla family, two sisters of M P Birla have also filed caveats in the matter.

Mitra also submitted before the court that the Birlas, who were just executors of the purported will of 1982 and not its beneficiaries, could not lay claim to the property.

Submitting that the Birlas were mere executors of the 1982 will, Mitra said they had no real interest in the assets of the group and as such they had no caveatable interest in the matter.

He submitted that an executor's right was only that of a manager. All the cases cited by the Birlas in their argument concerned legatees only and not executors, and as such these references did not apply in this case, he said.

Referring to the Birlas' argument that all the heirs of the family, in case the present caveaters ceased to exist, had a caveatable interest in the matter as they would inherit their property, he submitted that interest should be on existing facts and not on conjectures.

Mitra submitted that as such, K K Birla, B K Birla, G P Birla and Yashovardhan Birla had no caveatable interest in the probate application filed by Lodha for the purported 1999 will of Priyamvada.

Mitra, who has already argued against the caveats of three Birla family members, submitted that he would argue on the application for dismissal of G P Birla's caveat at a later stage and took the permission of the court for this.

Another advocate for Lodha, Pratap Chatterjee, placed before the court his affidavit in opposition to the Birlas' application for dismissal of Lodha's caveat on the probate application for the 1982 wills by the Birlas.