A division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday admitted for hearing a set of appeals filed by Harsh Vardhan Lodha and others, challenging a single bench judgement that restrained him from holding any office in any of the MP Birla Group entities during the pendency of a suit over the succession of the Priyamvada Devi Birla estate. Apart from Lodha, appeals were moved by the MP Birla Group’s Universal Cables Ltd, Vindhya Telelinks Ltd and Birla Cable before the division bench of Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice Shampa Sarkar.
Admitting the appeals, the bench directed that applications for a stay on the operation of the single bench verdict sought by the appellants will be taken up for hearing on Thursday. While Anindya Mitra and Debanjan Mandal appeared for Lodha and others, SK Kapur and SN Mookherjee represented the Birla’s in the video conference hearing.
The single bench of the high court, in a judgement over administering the estate by a court-appointed committee through majority decision, also restrained the Lodhas from drawing any benefit personally from out of the assets of the estate of the deceased Priyamvada Devi Birla during the pendency of the testamentary suit. Justice Shahidullah Munshi restrained the Lodhas from interfering with the decisions of the court-appointed Administrative Pendente Lite (APL) committee and any decision which might be taken by it in the future by the majority if the same directly or indirectly relates to the estate.
The appeals claimed that the verdict fails to make a distinction between Harsh Lodha as director of an MP Birla group company and Harsh Lodha as the proponent of the Will contrary to directions made by the same court in 2016. The single bench of the high court is also hearing a probate application by Harsh Lodha, whose late father RS Lodha had claimed that Priyamvada Devi Birla bequeathed her estate comprising the MP Birla Group, to him through a will.
The Birlas, one of the oldest industrial groups in the country, have challenged the probate application by the RS Lodha family and they have been involved in a legal battle over the control of the MP Birla Group since the death of Priyamvada Devi Birla in 2004. Priyamvada Devi Birla’s husband MP Birla had died in 1990.
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