- Sunjay Kapur's children - from his first marriage - alleged his will was forged to disinherit them
- The disputed will favours his second wife Priya and excludes the children of his first, actor Karishma Kapoor
- Claims to back that include misspelling of a son's name and an incorrect address for a daughter
The Bollywood-style drama over the estate of businessman Sunjay Kapur - worth around Rs 3,000 crore - continued Monday as the Delhi High Court resumed hearing the plea by the children of actor Karishma Kapoor. Appearing for Samaira, 20, and Kiaan, 15, senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani claimed the will had been forged to 'disinherit' his children from his first marriage.
There was 'something very secretive about this will', Jethmalani argued. "This 'will' does not involve Sunjay Kapur... and we were not supplied with any documents either," he said.
He also poked holes at the will for having misspelled one son's name and incorrectly recording the daughter's address. "These bloopers (are) very uncharacteristic of Sunjay Kapur," he said.
"Sunjay Kapur was in great health and his Indian property was secured by a tight trust. The circumstantial evidence is so completely contrary it leads to assumptions... that the contents of the will are bad. I say this based on his phone conversations with his 'disinherited' children."
He had a very good relationship with his children. So how could he have written his daughter's address wrong and misspelled his son's name in multiple places?"
Samaira and Kiaan are Sunjay Kapur's children from his marriage with Karishma Kapur.
The two wed in September 2003 and divorced in 2016, when she accused him of physical and mental abuse. He re-married model Priya Sachdev a year later and had a son, Azarias, with her.
The current case involves a plea for status quo in execution of Sunjay Kapur's will, i.e., the one presented by his second wife, Priya Sachdev Kapur. Samaira and Kiaan have claimed Priya 'usurped full control' of Sunjay's assets by forging a will after his death in the UK in June.
The will being claimed as Sunjay's last and valid leaves his personal estate to Priya.
The allegedly forged will - which Jethmalani called an "ominously uncertified document" - was dated March 21. In court today he argued, "We have no idea what happened to the will. It was modified on March 17. It is not clear who modified it... but it was modified again on March 24."
Asked by the court to explain these dates, Priya Kapur's lawyer said the changed dates - visible on the digital record of the MS Word document - was "because the file was being uploaded".
"You can check... all of them are the same document," the counsel said.
Jethmalani countered, "There was a modification on March 24. They have not explained it. On March 21 the question of the will was over. Why a three-day delay? Now there are two 'wills'."
The senior advocate also claimed a secret WhatsApp group had been set up with Sunjay and Priya Kapur, and Dinesh Agarwal, one of the latter's alleged co-conspirators.
The will was sent as a .pdf file and its name was changed, twice, he said.
"Two wills were simultaneously prepared... the husband and wife. These were not mutual wills and so have to be explained," he argued, trying to establish the second wife as a conspirator.
"They messaged about signed wills... the message was acknowledged by Priya not Sunjay."
"If we see the phone of Dinesh Agarwal, it can be seen there is no group name or phone numbers, and then, separately, it can be checked that the 'SK will' was only seen, not read."
Jethmalani was referring to a feature of WhatsApp that allows users to decide if messages sent to them are marked as 'read' on the sender's device. Users can turn this feature off.
Last week too there was a dramatic showdown in court after Priya Sachdev Kapur was compared to Cinderella's stepmother. In a no-holds attack Jethmalani accused her of being 'greedy'.
READ | In Sunjay Kapur Estate Battle, A "Cinderella" Swipe At His Wife
"She got 60 per cent of the assets and allotted 12 per cent to her son. She is also getting 75 per cent of the trust... but she is only concerned with her personal assets."
Meanwhile, Samaira and Kiaan are not alone in claiming Priya 'usurped' control of Sunjay's assets; his mother, Rani Kapur, has also challenged the will. She said 'nothing has been left for me'.
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