He moved HC through 2 sisters, seeking protection of assets in event of his demise

For almost a decade, the Mafatlal family fought bitterly for the family heirloom but it was the last suit filed by Ajay Mafatlal’s two sisters on his behalf that is perhaps the most poignant.

The suit was filed on August 13 and the liberal use of the phrase “upon his demise” or “immediately thereafter” raises one important question. Was Ajay Mafatlal preparing for the worst? Ajay passed away on August 22 at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.

The suit in question was filed in the Bombay HC by Gayatri Jhaveri and Malavika Taktawala, who were “on his side” in the war within the family. The siblings on the other side are Ajay’s brother, Atulya, and sister, Kunti Shah.

The suit seeks “protection of” Ajay’s assets in the house he always lived in — second floor of the Mafatlal Bungalow at Altamount Road. Only Atulya Mafatlal — Ajay’s only brother — lives on the same floor, which was divided between the family because of the internal dispute. Ajay stayed with his mother Madhuri in one half and Atulya stayed with his now estranged wife Sheetal in the other, with both the “factions” sharing a common living area. The suit filed by Jhaveri and Taktawala as “heirs of Ajay Mafatlal” is directed against Atulya and Kunti — a resident of Mayfair building at Malabar Hill.

It reads, “The plaintiffs are constrained to prefer the present proceedings against the defendants (Atulya and Kunti), their agents, servants and employees since the plaintiffs apprehend that pending the hospitalisation of Ajay Yogindra Mafatlal, or immediately thereafter, the defendants their agents, servants and employees would take forcible possession and occupation of the movable and immovable assets of Ajay Yogindra Mafatlal.”

The suit continues, “The plaintiffs submit that Ajay Mafatlal never intended and would never intend that even a small fraction of his said suit assets be enjoyed by the defendants in any manner whatsoever during his life time or upon his demise.”

It later on adds, “The only desire is that the said suit assets of Mr Ajay Mafatlal be protected for his use and enjoyment during his lifetime and in a worst case scenario upon his demise be put to use and enjoyment by any person/legal entity whom Mr Ajay Mafatlal may have chosen by making his last will and testament or in its absence by the law of succession governing him.”

The suit and an application seeking urgent relief ask for a court receiver or court commissioner to be appointed, after which Jhaveri and Taktawala be accepted as agents of the court receiver/ commissioner so that no one disturbs the belongings valued at about Rs 1.10 cr in the suit. It provides a detailed list of cases between the two factions to spell out the acrimony.

The suit says that after he was hospitalised (on July 30), Ajay instructed Jhaveri and Taktawala to post guards in his portion of the house to protect his assets as well as belongings, since there was no one occupying that portion. On August 4, three people in plainclothes, claiming to be from the Mumbai Police’s crime branch, visited the Breach Candy Hospital, making enquiries about the whereabouts of Ajay Mafatlal and in fact managed to reach his bed outside the usual visiting hours of the ICU, allegedly without any documentation from the hospital.

The suit further alleges that later on August 9, Atulya made a “false and frivolous complaint” with the Gamdevi police station about the presence of security guards inside the bungalow and asked for removal of those guards “through police” though they were posted “only to protect the movable and immovable assets of Ajay in the house”.

The Parsi Dairy Farm on Princess Street, Marine Lines is hard to miss. The bright blue building with its aroma of milk, ghee and a variety of sweets is considered to be one of Mumbai’s most iconic food establishments, coming from the erstwhile Irani café era of the city.
However, the 99-year old dairy seems to be nearing its end. The family is planning to to sell its 300-acre land at Talasari, an agricultural land in Warvada village on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, according to a a report by The Times of India. The Nariman family, which founded the dairy, bought the land back in 1968 for livestock and to support its dairy activities. The reports also suggests that the family may look to shut shop or sell the brand in the near future.

While it is unclear whether the family will actually sell the store as well, if it does happen, it will be the end of yet another iconic Parsi establishment in Mumbai. The Parsi Dairy Farm was founded in 1916 by Parsi entrepreneur Nariman Ardheshir, and has since been run by the Nariman family. It was included in CNN Travel’s 10 vintage Bombay brands in 2010 and is one of the most frequented sweet shops in South Mumbai.
However, this may not be the end of the establishment, as it has faced other problems in the past but managed to sail on. In 2006, the store was shut for months due to a labour strike. The shop remained closed from November 2006 to June 2007 after workers went on strike protesting non-payment of dues, according to this Mumbai Mirror report. In 2008, the workers planned another strike over wage issues, continues the report. The overall production of the farm has also gone down, over the past decade-and-a-half, with the business plummeting from supplying 15,000 litres of milk a day to barely 2,000 litres today, says The Times of India.
The establishment was then revamped a few years later thanks to brothers Bakhtyar, 31, and Sarfaraz K Irani, 28, who joined the family business in 27. A Mumbai Mirror interview quotes them as saying that they focused on marketing, advertising, packaging and new product creation.
Parsi Dairy Farm is not the only iconic eatery from the bygone era struggling to stay afloat. The once popular joints are being fazed out, especially in South Mumbai, as the city moves from ‘brun maska’ to burgers. The Bastani and Co bakery, very close to Parsi Dairy at Dhobi Talao, shut a few years ago. Merwans, a traditional Iranian café at Grant Road was on the verge of shutting down in 2014, however it managed to continue running, along with a handful of other iconic Iranian establishments in the vicinity.
While the future of the dairy as it approaches its centenary year remains to be seen, hopefully we can enjoy a few more years of the malai kulfi and sutarfeni there.

New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) Col. Pushpender Singh (retd), one of the three ex-servicemen on a fast-unto-death here on the One Rank One Pension issue, was on Monday rushed to hospital after his health deteriorated on the eighth day of the indefinite fast.
United Ex-Servicement Front spokesman Col. Anil Kaul (retd) told IANS that the armed force veteran was taken to Rockland hospital in south Delhi.
Retired Havildar Tej Singh replaced Col. Pushpender Singh. The health of the other two veterans, Major Singh and Ashok Kumar Chauhan, both retired havildars, is fine, Col. Kaul added.

Kathua (JK), Aug 24 (PTI) Police today arrested one person and recovered 280 kilogram of a rare banned medicinal herb Nag Chatri from his possession at Lakhanpur inter-state toll plaza.

“A joint team of police, excise and forest department Lakhanpur seized 280 kilograms of rare forest herb Nag Chatri from a truck during checking at Lakhanpur toll plaza today and arrested Sabzar Ahmed of Bijbehara in South Kashmir”, a police officer said.

Acting on a tip-off, the truck which was on its way to Delhi from Kashmir was subjected to checking and 280 kg of Nag Chatri packed in gunny bags was recovered, Deputy Commissioner of Excise at Lakhanpur toll post, Rajesh Sharma said.

A case has been registered in this regard and investigation is underway, he said.

A UN tribunal on Monday asked both India and Italy to “suspend” all court proceedings involving two Italian marines charged with killing of two Indian fishermen in 2012 and also refrain from initiating new ones that might “aggravate or extend” the dispute.

Hearing Italy’s appeal in the case, the President of the International Tribunal on Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Vladimir Golitsyn asked the two countries to submit the initial report in the entire incident by September 24.

The judge said pending a decision by the arbitral tribunal, “Italy and India shall both suspend all court proceedings and shall refrain from initiating new ones which might aggravate or extend the dispute submitted to the…
arbitral tribunal or might jeopardise or prejudice the carrying out of any decision which the arbitral tribunal may render.”

He further said, “Italy and India shall each submit to the Tribunal the initial report…not later than 24 September 2015, and authorises the President, after that date, to request such information from the Parties as he may consider appropriate.”

The 21-member UN-mandated court located in this German city issued the order with 15 in favour and six against. Unhappy over India’s handling of the marine’s issue, Italy took the matter to the ITLOS challenging Indian jurisdiction in the case.

It has pleaded that India must cease to exercise any form of jurisdiction over the Enrica Lexie Incident and the Italian Marines, including any measure of restraint with respect to Sergeant Latorre and Sergeant Girone.

The two marines, who were on board ship ‘Enrica Lexie’, are accused of killing two Indian fishermen on February 15, 2012 off the Kerala coast. ITLOS is an independent judicial body established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas to adjudicate disputes arising out of the interpretation and application of the Convention.

JAMMU: India and Pakistan must hold their dialogue in a neutral country, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah said on Sunday after the collapse of the NSA-level talks.

“I think the way forward is they can’t talk in this country or in Pakistan. They have to find another third neutral country where they can talk,” the National Conference leader told the media.

“Otherwise I don’t see there is going to be ever any breakthrough between these two countries,” he said.

Islamabad on Saturday axed the talks between the Indian and Pakistani national security advisers after New Delhi strongly opposed to any meeting by the visiting Pakistani officials with Kashmiri separatists.

The former chief minister also said Pakistan needed to realise how terrorism was affecting it.

He said everybody was hoping that something better would come out of the NSA talks in New Delhi and bombing on the Kashmir border would stop.

“I think Pakistan does not realise that how terrorism is eating its own land.

“Every day they also have incidents where lots of people die. If they do not want to stop terrorism, India cannot help,” Abdullah added.

Mahoba (UP), Aug 21 (PTI) Taking suo motu congnisance of his recent remarks on rape, a local court has summoned Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on September 16.

Civil Judge (Junior Division) of Kulpahad Tehsil Ankit Goel took congisance of Yadav’s statement on rape on August 18 in Lucknow, where he had said while one man commits rape, four are named to “settle scores” and that rape by four persons was not “practical”.

The SP supremo had said there were instances where only one person committed rape but the victim named four people merely to “settle scores”.

The summons have been issued under sections 3 and 4 of Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1956 and under IPC sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 116 (abetment of offence punishable with imprisonment).

New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) After a long “dormancy”, the country’s investment cycle is showing signs of recovery and to sustain this trend the government needs to step in as “investor and enabler”, a Standard Chartered report said today.

“Our analysis of the recent Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data, shows initial signs of recovery, particularly in infrastructure investment, after years of dormancy,” Standard Chartered said in a research note adding that “we expect the investment cycle to recover in FY16, albeit at a gradual pace.”

According to the global financial services major, an investment recovery seems to have begun as investment remained on an upward trend in the first quarter of this fiscal year.

The global brokerage said reviving the investment cycle is crucial to put India’s growth on a higher and more sustainable trajectory and in order to support the recovery, government has to play the “dual role of investor and enabler”.

The government is driving the current investment recovery, while private-sector investment remains soft, it said.

The report noted that recovery in private-sector investment will be gradual and halting given high corporate -sector leverage, a weak banking sector, and low capacity utilisation in sectors to which the private sector has high exposure.

“Since these issues will take time to resolve, a pick-up in private-sector investment is still two to four quarters away, in our view. We expect India’s investment growth to improve to 7.2 per cent in FY16 from 4.6 per cent in FY15,” the report said.

As per the report, land acquisition hurdles, lack of funding, weak and environmental clearances are key bottlenecks to investment.

“The impact of global developments on domestic investment also needs to be monitored. The recent sharp decline in global metal prices, for example, is likely to curb private-sector investment in the metal sector, delaying its recovery,” the report added.

WARSAW, Poland: Two men in Poland claim they have found a legendary Nazi train that according to local lore was loaded with gold, gems and valuable art and vanished into a system of secret tunnels as the Germans fled advancing Soviet forces at the end of World War II.

Historians say the existence of the train has never been conclusively proven, but authorities are not passing up this chance at possibly recovering treasures that have sparked the imaginations of local people for decades.

“We believe that a train has been found. We are taking this seriously,” Marika Tokarska, an official in the southwestern Polish district of Walbrzych, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

She said her office has received two letters this month from a law firm representing the men, a Pole and a German who are remaining anonymous, saying they are seeking 10 percent of the value of the train’s contents for revealing its location.

She says that hiring a law firm gives credibility to the two men’s claims, as do indications that they are familiar with the train’s contents.

Already, the district governor has convened a meeting of firefighters, police and others to explore how they can safely handle the train if it is located. Not only could it be armed with explosives, but methane gas underground could add to the risk of an explosion.

“It could be dangerous,” Tokarska said.

The train is said to have gone missing in May 1945. Legend says it was armed and loaded with treasure and disappeared after entering a complex of tunnels under the Owl Mountains, a secret project known as “Riese” — or Giant — which the Nazis never finished. At the time the area belonged to Germany but now lies in Poland.