“In the larger interest”

After much drama and suspense the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship elections are slated to be held on March 27 next year, subject to the Bombay High Court (BHC) giving its assent. The last trustee to hold out, Viraf Mehta (see "The Mehta machinations,” Parsiana, November 7-20, 2021) signed the papers that were then handed over on the night of November 10, 2021 to mediator Berjis Desai. Desai was to file the papers in the BHC on November 15.

From l: Viraf Mehta, Noshir Dadrawala, Kersi Randeria

Mehta, who had been holding on to the court consent papers signed by his four co-trustees finally relented after extracting an "unconditional” written apology from trustees Noshir Dadrawala and Kersi Randeria for "statements made in the Parsi Times (PT) of October 30, 2021.” The duo issued the apology in the PT of November 13 "in the larger interest of the BPP trust and in the interest of moving forward in peace and harmony.” PT is owned by Randeria.
The Parsi Junction of November 14 which espouses the line of former BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta and his son Viraf, stated that the latter "had all intentions to abide” by the consent terms first agreed to on November 3.” That initial agreement on a BPP letterhead was signed in the BPP boardroom following the dramatic, indefinite fast initiated by Dadrawala to hold the BPP elections as per the scheme sanctioned by the Court. The Mehta camp had delayed the elections thrice citing the pandemic as an excuse and also said they required time to shorten the trusteeship term to five years. They wanted to extend the election date to October 2022!
Trustee Zarir Bhathena had died in June 2020 and former chairman Yazdi Desai stepped down in December 2020 on account of ill health. He expired on November 2, 2021.
Under the proposed, historic amendments a trustee’s term is to be shortened from seven to five years with the maximum number of years a person can serve being limited to 10 years as versus the present 21 years. All the present trustees are to resign once the new board is elected. The election will be for seven seats and the present trustees can stand for the elections, if they so wish.