No relief for Jyotiraditya in Scindia property row

MUMBAI: The

Bombay high court

has refused Congress politician Jyotiraditya Scindia relief against three aunts in a fight over ancestral properties going back over three decades.

Justice Ramesh Dhanuka dismissed Scindia’s application urging that written statements given by his aunts in 2017 through which they had staked a claim in the properties should be struck down.

“Though this court has power to strike off the pleadings if the conditions set out (under the rules) are satisfied, this court is not inclined to exercise such power, firstly on the ground that no case is made out by the

Jyotiraditya

for invoking the power,” Jutsice Dhanuka said. “Secondly, such powers have to be exercised with great care and circumspection and not in a casual manner.”

The justice said that striking off the written statement filed by Vasundhra Raje, the former chief minister of Rajasthan, and her sisters, Usha Raje and Yashodhara Raje, would have serious adverse impact on the right of the defence available to them pursuant to the liberty granted by his court.

“Such powers can be exercised sparingly, and in case of clear finding that such pleadings, if allowed to be remain on record, would be a abuse of process of the court... There are several contentious issues raised by both the parties which would require a detail adjudication on facts and law,” the court said.

The court clarified that it had not gone into the alleged inconsistencies in the affidavits filed by the three sisters in 1985 and their later written statement and the issue could be taken up in the trial.

Jivajirao Scindia, the former ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Gwalior, died on July 17, 1961, without leaving behind a will. In 1984, his wife,

Vijaya Raje

, filed a partition suit claiming that the properties left behind being that of a Hindu Undivided Family, should be shared 50:50 between her and her son, Madhavrao.

She filed a suit in 1985 before the Pune city civil court seeking possession of her half share of the properties and claimed that the daughters had been given their share of the properties. An affidavit was filed by the daughters in 1985 supporting their mother’s suit. Vijaya Raje died in January 2001 and Madhavrao died the same year in a plane crash. Jyotiraditya and his sister stepped in place of their father in the legal case.


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