The daughter of Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Dina Wadia has filed a fresh appeal in the Bombay high court to gain the possession of Jinnah House that her father built in 1936 in the upmarket Malabar Hill area in Mumbai.
Wadia (88), the mother of textile magnate Nusli Wadia of the Bombay Dyeing group, claims that the title of the house be handed over to her as she is Jinnah's only heir.
According to Wadia, the (then) State of Bombay took over the property, because Jinnah's sister Fatima was the trustee of Jinnah's will, and had been declared an evacuee (those who migrated to Pakistan post-partition) in 1949.
However, Wadia now says that her father's will was not probated by the Bombay high court and therefore had no effect on any operation of law. Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to his legal heir.
Also, she is the sole legal heir of Jinnah's property, both under Hindu Law (applicable to Khoja community before independence, to which Jinnah belonged) or the Shia Muslim law, her petition claims.