The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the head of the Raymond Group, Dr. Vijaypat Singhania, to vacate his bungalow at Juhu and hand it over to JK Paper and Tyres (Calcutta Group). A single Bench of Justice K.R. Shriram ordered Dr. Singhania, caught in a legal battle over the distribution of family property, to hand over the bungalow to the Calcutta group after it deposits Rs. 23.40 crore in six weeks.
The Calcutta group, Mumbai group (Raymond) and Kanpur group (Jay Kay Enterprises) — all members of the extended Singhania family — were carrying on business under the name of M/s J K Bankers, a partnership firm. Considerable immovable properties were brought into the partnership firm.
In 1987, by way of family settlement, the partnership firm was dissolved and a Deed of Dissolution was executed by all parties who agreed to distribute the immovable properties free from encumbrances as provided in an earlier deed in 1980. The distribution was to be completed as soon as possible and the parties were to strive to accomplish the same by May 1987 but they could not agree on distributing the partnership assets. An arbitrator was appointed in April 2006 who ordered and directed the partition and distribution of immovable properties and grouped the members into three: Calcutta, Kanpur and Bombay. As per the award passed by the arbitrator, the Calcutta group was to receive Juhu property and pay Rs 22.71 crores to Kanpur group and Rs 23.40 crores to the Bombay group for equalizing Calcutta group’s share.
The HC also directed the Bombay group and Kanpur group to draw a cheque of Rs 10 lakh each in favour of Calcutta group. The court has further directed both the groups to pay Rs 10 lakhs to Maharashtra Legal Aid Services Authority. By levying this costs, the bench mentioned, “This action of the Bombay Group and Kanpur Group, it is quite obvious is inspired by vexatious motives. I observe with regret the inflication of the ordeal by parties like the Bombay group and Kanpur group by presenting a case which was disingenuous or worse. It may be valuable contribution to the cause of justice if such speculative and frivolous litigations are dealt with a tough hand. Substantial judicial time will be saved if such parties are saddled with substantial costs so that they would not continue the onslaught on precious judicial time.”
