BPP: Four say nay

Relations between the warring Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees have worsened with four of the seven passing a vote of no confidence against their chairman Yazdi Desai at the board’s January 16, 2019 meeting. Trustees Armaity Tirandaz, Noshir Dadrawala, Viraf Mehta and Xerxes Dastur said they will also be filing an application under Section 41(D) of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, in the Charity Commissioner’s office asking for Desai’s removal. Trustee Kersi Randeria reportedly kept his vote in abeyance and trustee Zarir Bhathena had left the meeting earlier.

"We will have to seek legal advice on whether we should remove (Desai) as a chairman or as a trustee," Dadrawala told The Times of India (ToI) of January 16. Desai retorted that Section 41 (D) pertained only to removal of a trustee on the grounds of misuse of property for personal gain, and in his case, there was no such issue. "The trustees don’t know the meaning of 41(D)," he told ToI.

The allegations by the trustees against Desai include the chairman signing a leave and license agreement for a flat for the secretary of Wadia scion Ness "without the knowledge or approval of his co-trustees," not withdrawing the case against Rustom Baug tenant Dr Porus Turner, allotting an ownership flat to a non-Parsi, and permitting his wife Anahita to act as a "shadow chairperson." Desai refuted the allegations over social media (see "Confidence reversed," Events and Personalities, Parsiana, January 21, 2019) and also in the ToI news report.