HC to probe why Dandavate's will has not been certified for 5 years

MUMBAI: Bombay high court chief justice Mohit Shah has ordered a probe into why the will of the late socialist leader, Madhu Dandavate, has not been certified by HC officials even five years after his death.
The probe was initiated after The Times of India reported on Saturday that Dandavate's son, Uday, alleged that HC testamentary department officials had refused to probate the will as he refused to bribe them.
Uday said the officials were aware of who his father was and also the fact that he had left behind a meager sum. Madhu Dandavate was railway minister in Moraji Desai's cabinet and finance minister in V P Singh's cabinet. A five-time Member of Parliament from Rajapur in the coastal Konkan belt in Maharashtra, he was known for his honesty and simplicity. Instead of opting for cremation, he had donated his body to JJ Hospital.
Uday, who heads a design research consultancy in the United States, made a passing mention of his father's will in an article in the current issue of The Radical Humanist. Titled 'Crisis of character', the article dwelt on how the average Indian had been forced to accept corruption.
The Special Investigating Department (SID), the HC's vigilance cell, began looking into the case on Saturday.
Sources said that there was a flurry of activity behind closed doors in the testamentary department on Saturday. ''A clutch of lawyers who only deal with wills have a stranglehold over the department. Their employees had illegally closed the door and were rummaging through the papers on Saturday,'' a lawyer said.
On being questioned by the SID, testamentary department officials claimed that Dandavate's will had been probated a month back. However, on the Internet, the status report said that the will had not been probated following objections from the department.
Sources said that the lawyers who hold sway over the testamentary department boast that they can get a will probated in a month if the heir is willing to pay them Rs 50,000. Other lawyers who occasionally take up matters relating to wills complained that their case papers were often untraceable.
Uday had said that his lawyer had sent him several hints to be practical and pay the bribe. ''Ultimately, he stopped taking my calls in the hope that that I would come around and give in to the ground reality,'' he said.