By filing the probate petition in the Calcutta high court, R S Lodha on Monday took the first step to formally take charge of the Rs 5,000-crore (Rs 50 billion) assets of the MP Birla group bequeathed by the deceased group chairperson Priyamvada Birla. Lodha's confidence in moving the petition stems from the fact the will is registered.
How does registration strengthen the will? The probate petition has the four-page will of late Priyamvada Birla attached, along with a schedule of assets and some other supporting documents.
Birla vs Lodha: War over a will
For one, the authenticity of the signatures of the three witnesses to the will now becomes virtually watertight in view of its registered nature.
The witnesses will find it impossible to deny their signatures, as the will has been given legal validity through the registration process.
The authenticity of the signature of Priyamvada Birla will similarly be established.
The will was registered at the Registrar of Assurances, Kolkata. The registration process will establish that the late Priyamvada Birla wanted that the will should be treated as valid instrument after her death.
As the will would have been executed in the presence of the Registrar of Assurance, either at the registrar's office, or at the residence of Priyamvada Birla, it would serve as a statement of her intention.
It would be an uphill task for the Birlas to prove that the registered will was a bad one. They could plead Lodha was not the natural legal heir. By directing that all properties should pass on to Lodha, Priyamvada Birla had acted in an unnatural manner, the Birlas could maintain.
In addition, the Birla case would find it doubly difficult to establish that at the time of signing the will, Priyamavada Birla was of unsound mind, because at the time of the registration she was the signatory in the registered document and the registrar would stand as guarantor for the document.
The Birlas could now plead either that Priyamvada attempted through the document to give away assets that was not hers to give away at all. In other words, it could be argued that she did not have the power to nominate her successor to the post of trustee managing the MP Birla group trusts.
The registration process established the genuineness of the document; the challenge would be limited to the specific contents of the will as being bad in law because Priyamvada had overstepped her rights in giving away assets that was not hers to give, and had excluded all natural heirs of the person from whom she had inherited the properties, i.e., her husband MP Birla.
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