Reprieve for BPP

The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) received a reprieve with Bombay High Court (HC) Justices D. K. Deshmukh and N. D. Deshpande admitting their appeal against the Assistant Charity Commissioner (ACC) A. H. Shingne’s order of October 13, 2010 favoring dissenting trustee Noshir Dadrawala.

BPP counsels Rafique Dada and Percy Ghandy argued on December 3, 2010 that all the material sought by Dadrawala had been made available to him in one form or the other. He is "party to all the meetings. Even if he is not” he can get access to the information, argued Dada.

Dadrawala’s counsel Sagheer Khan countered that "the minutes have not been given…Why would we fight before the Charity Commissioner (CC) and the Bombay High Court if they were given? How can I function like a trustee if I am denied access to papers? I should be privy to all (aspects) of the trust.”

Deshpande said the bench was "admitting the plea. It appears prima facie the documents” were given. The ACC’s order was stayed while a request to expedite the case was rejected by the bench.

In a letter to the Press and well-wishers, Dadrawala retorted that "the recent order of the Bombay High Court has been so caught up in narrow technicalities that the real issue has been completely sidelined… My contention is — if the information has indeed been given to the court why not give it to me for scrutiny as well?”

Dadrawala noted that a year ago he was compelled to move the CC’s office "since my colleagues refused to furnish information concerning availability of flats, minutes of the meetings of the previous board of trustees, etc. They had taken the view that if the information which I had sought is given to me, it would be used by me against them in the High Court in the case of allotment of flats.”

When the case was being argued before the CC the BPP lawyers questioned why Dadrawala did not take up the matter in the High Court in late 2009 whilst the matter was pending over the allotment of flats to 104 applicants cleared by the previous board of trustees. "The answer is simple; there was no scope for me to take this matter up in the High Court since a consent order had been passed by the High Court to appoint a one man committee to look into the allotment of flats… To the best of my knowledge and belief, only sketchy and incomplete information has been given to the High Court...

"In any case, after nearly a year, the CC passed an order directing the trustees to provide me with some of the information which I had then sought. My colleagues promptly moved the Bombay High Court to obtain a stay order.”

Dadrawala’s letter goes on to state, "I have been actively participating in the meetings of the Wadia Committee of Management for the last several months. Is there any justification for not giving me minutes of these meetings?

"It is also a fact that despite several written and oral requests, I have not been privy to even the audited statements of accounts for the past two years. When I requested the chairman for a copy he asked me to obtain copies from the Charity Commissioner’s office. ‘Why should we make things easy for you?’ he recently told me.

"Ideally, in the interest of transparency and accountability the audited statements of accounts should be published in The BPP Review and put up on the BPP’s website. What could be the reason for not doing that?”

File picture of B. S. Panthaky Baug during the 2009 BPP election

In another matter the BPP hopefully crossed the last hurdle over the four decades long litigation with the Jilla family that claimed ownership of part of B. S. Panthaky Baug in Andheri. According to The Times of India report of December 7, 2010, "The disputes dated back to 1969 when (Pestonji Dhunjishaw) Jilla initially laid claims to some parts of B. S. Panthaky Baug and allegedly extended his claims over the years. In 1982, the Punchayet filed a suit against Jilla and were granted an injunction against him entering or dealing with the land. Jilla, too, filed a suit against the Punchayet but in 2004, the HC decreed the Punchayet’s suit and dismissed Jilla’s suit. During the intervening years, several attempts by Jilla before the revenue department and other government authorities to stake claim to the land were defeated. Even Jilla wanted to sell a portion of the land and the HC had, at one point, (reportedly) even fined him Rs 5,000 and punished him for civil contempt of court.

"After the suits were decided in favor of the Punchayet, Jilla filed two appeals. He died while they were pending, but this year, his successors sought to revive those appeals and claimed that they had a right over the land. When they received no order from the High Court, they received an ex parte status quo order from the Supreme Court (SC). The Punchayet pursued the matter vigorously in the HC and finally on December 3, 2010, the SC dismissed appeals filled by Jilla’s successors and thus upheld the HC order. Both sides engaged top counsels with Jilla appointing Harish Salve and Mukul Rotagi while the BPP was represented in the SC by Rohinton Nariman, Shyam Divan, Amar Dave and solicitor Jehangir Mistry of Mulla and Mulla and Craigie Blunt and Caroe and M/s Karanjawala in Delhi.”