Bombay HC restrains three ‘tenants’ from selling Kuwait royal family’s Mumbai property – The Indian Express

However, the court refused to appoint a receiver to oversee the property at the Al-Sabah Court building, saying Sheikhah Fadiah Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah, daughter of the late emir, had failed to establish that the three defendants had forged tenancy agreements.

Sheikhah Fadiah said that after her father’s death in May 2008, she and other family members got the succession certificate for the property and that the defendants were trespassers and should be restrained from transferring the premises.

While extending the interim order, a single-judge bench of Justice B P Colabawalla held on Friday that Sheikhah Fadiah “prima facie” had failed to establish that tenancy agreements entered into by Faisal Essa, who was the emir’s authorised representative, had been forged and that there was no question of appointing a court receiver.

Sheikhah Fadiah’s plea requested that Sanjay Mishrimal Punamiya, Amish Amir Shaikh and Mahesh Rupnarayan Soni be declared trespassers on the property.

According to Sheikhah Fadiah, Punamiya had taken wrongful possession of a flat measuring 7,000 sq ft on the building’s fifth floor and Amir Shaikh had signed a forged tenancy agreement for a ground-floor room measuring nearly 270 sq ft. She also sought that Soni be restrained from transferring the rights of a 300sq-ft room on the sixth floor.

The plea sought a declaration that the tenancy agreements of October 2012 and January 2013, entered into with the trio, along with rent receipts were fabricated and were not binding on her. It also wanted that the rooms along with a parking garage on the ground floor be handed over to Sheikhah Fadiah, who also sought Rs 35 lakh per month from the “unlawful occupants” of the property.

According to the plea, the building was owned by the royal family. It was taken on long-term lease in 1955 by the then Kuwait emir, Sheikh Abdullah, and some of the units were given to tenants. After Abdullah died in 1965, Sheikh Saad got an inheritance certificate, it added.

Sheikhah Fadiah said her father was Kuwait’s prime minister and later became the emir, or the head of state. After his death on May 13, 2008, Sheikhah Fadiah said, she along with her mother and sibling obtained the heirship to his estate. She thus holds powers to manage the building’s affairs, the plea said.

On May 7, 2014, the high court passed an interim order restraining the defendant trio from transferring the premises in question.

Sheikhah Fadiah’s counsel submitted that Faisal Essa was authorised as the property’s caretaker by Sheikh Saad. After Essa left India in May 2013, the defendants allegedly took illegal and forcible possession of the premises by bribing servants or staff.

The defendants’ counsel denied the allegation of the fabrication of tenancy agreements and rent receipts.

Justice Colabawalla refused to appoint a court receiver saying that the “question to do so would have arisen only when the court comes to the conclusion that prima facie the plaintiff has a chance of succeeding in the suit or in case of emergency or loss”.

The court held that the 2014 order restraining the defendants “would adequately safeguard the rights of the plaintiff, if any” and posted the next hearing to December 16.