Kolkata (ILNS): A division bench of the Calcutta High Court yesterday refused to offer interim relief to Harsh Vardhan Lodha on an earlier probate court judgment that ordered his removal from all MP Birla group companies.
Last month Harsh Vardhan Lodha and MP Birla Group entities filed multiple applications before a division bench of the Calcutta High Court challenging the single bench order restraining Lodha from holding any post in the group. The court has asked for affidavits to be filed by October 21 and replies by November 17.
The 16-year-long legal dispute between the Birlas and the Lodha family took a fresh turn last month after a single bench of the High Court stopped Lodha from holding any position in the conglomerate.
In September, this year, a probate court had ruled that Lodha should be removed as chairman of Birla Corporation and also as a director on the boards of other MP Birla companies, including listed firms Vindhya Telelinks Ltd, Birla Cables Ltd, and Universal Cables Ltd. The order was a significant victory for the extended Birla family, which is contesting the legal validity of Priyamvada Birla’s will.
In Thursday’s order, a division bench of Chief Justice TB Radhakrishnan and Justice Shampa Sarkar said: “We are keeping open all issues for further consideration and are only proceeding to decide as to whether an ad-interim order is to be issued. We are not dealing with the judicial precedents referred to by the learned advocates for the appellants, though it is not as if we are not bearing in mind the fundamental principles brought in through those precedents, referable to the realm of testamentary jurisdiction and company law.”
Priyamvada Birla, who died in 2004, bequeathed her estate to the late Rajendra Singh Lodha, a chartered accountant who was an advisor to her for many years. Harsh Lodha is RS Lodha’s son, who currently heads the MP Birla Group.
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RS Lodha, who succeeded Priyamvada Birla as chairman of the MP Birla Group, died in 2008.
The extended Birla family had opposed the will and, since 2004, have been fighting court cases against the Lodhas. Though in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that most members of the Birla clan did not have a legitimate interest in Priyamvada Birla’s estate, they continue to fight Harsh Lodha in courts through relations.
Yesterday, while a spokesperson for the Birla family said “today’s judgment was a prodigious setback for Lodha”, an official statement from Debanjan Mandal, partner, Fox & Mandal, representing Lodha, said: “Our client wasn’t, in the first place, reappointed as a director in these companies on the strength of the estate of Priyamvada Devi Birla. So the order paves the way for his continuing to hold offices in these companies as he was doing uninterruptedly from before the death of Mrs. Birla.”
-India Legal Bureau