Sunjay Kapur inheritance battle: ‘Obviously present wife would be preferred over estranged wife’, Priya Kapur tells Delhi HC

Kapur’s two children with Karisma are locked in an inheritance battle with Priya — his third wife — over his personal assets, claiming their share as Class 1 or immediate heirs.

Kapur, the former chairman of Sona Comstar, died on June 12 after suffering a heart attack during a polo match in the United Kingdom.

The HC was hearing the case for the fourth consecutive day, and has now posted the matter for further hearing on October 17.

Dismissing suspicions raised over the validity of the will owing to errors such as typos in the spelling of Sunjay’s six-year-old son, wrong addresses mentioned of Karisma’s children, and errors like terming ‘testator’ in the will as ‘testatrix’, Nayar submitted that, minus a challenge to the validity of the will, such arguments cannot be raised by Karisma’s children.

“The entire plaint is bereft of any cause of action… they’ve spent four days calling a will ‘bogus’, with no challenge to it… this will is not in the probate jurisdiction at the moment,” Nayar pointed out.

Addressing the allegations of a forged will being propounded, as well as suspicions around the timing of making the will public, Nayar argued, “She (Priya) was an investment banker… if forgery was to be complete, will there be mistakes left? As a mother, will I spell my son’s spelling wrong? Is it a ground to invalidate a will? Is it a challenge maintainable in law? Supposing it was kept in my pocket and surfaces at the appropriate time, will it be invalidated?… (the address mentioned in Sunjay’s will) is the address of [Karisma’s daughter] in her income tax returns.”

“He (Sunjay) provided for them sufficiently under the trust. And when you accepted it under the trust to the exclusion of the mother-in-law [Rani Kapur, Sunjay’s mother], there were no tears, and now you’re [Karisma’s children] saying she [Rani] has been left on the road? We are to only see whether the will was executed by a man of sound mind in the presence of attesting witnesses… Challenge has to be to the execution of will, has nothing to do with how it surfaces. Challenge to a will cannot be predicated on late production of a will… We are testing the challenge in the absence of a challenge to the will… There is nothing unusual in the bequest…,” Nayar added.

He pointed out that Sunjay’s father, too, in his will had similarly bequeathed his assets, and thus “it runs in the family”.

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