Rajendra S Lodha would file his affidavit in reply early next week to the opposition by the Birlas against his petition before the Calcutta high court seeking dismissal of their caveats in the matter regarding Priyamvada Birla's will.
The reply, which is being drafted by Lodha's solicitors Fox and Mondal, is likely to stress on the claim that Priyamvada Birla wanted to maintain a separate identity of her husband M P Birla and as such Lodha has been bequeathed the Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) in assets of the group and was also made the executor of the will to uphold his name through charity, reliable sources said in Kolkata on Tuesday.
Birla vs Lodha: War over a will
The draft of the reply also says that the four Birlas' claim that they had interest in the matter did not have any ground, maintaining the claim that the four Birlas have no locus standi in the matter.
The four Birla family members -- K K Birla, G P Birla, B K Birla and Yashovardhan Birla -- had on August 11 filed the affidavits in opposition claiming that they had ample interest in the matter relating to the Rs 5,000 crore assets of M P Birla group.
Lodha had filed a petition seeking the dismissal of the caveats filed by the four Birlas arguing that they had no locus standi in the matter, which would come up for hearing before Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta on August 25.
Earlier, Lodha filed an application for probate of Priyamvada's will, and had attached a 35-page asset list of Priyamvada as per her income tax return, claiming that the sum total of her personal assets was in excess of Rs 3.52 crore (Rs 35.2 million).
