SONALI NIMISH ARORA Vs. SANDEEP GOPAL RAHEJA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There is before me a Chamber Summons filed by the original Defendant No. 6, Sonali Arora ("Sonali"), in Suit No. 2363 of 2012 filed by her late father, Gopal L. Raheja. The prayers in this Chamber Summons are firstly to condone a delay of 32 days in filing this Chamber Summons; secondly, to set aside the abatement, if any, of the suit itself; and thirdly, to allow the transposition of Defendant No. 6 as the Plaintiff in place of the original Plaintiff who has passed away.

(2.) There are actually a very large number of suits and applications that are interlinked, although I am at this stage concerned in this judgment only with this Chamber Summons. In order to better understand the spectrum of disputes, before dealing with the rival contentions in this Chamber Summons, it is perhaps useful to outline at the broadest level these competing actions. The disputes are all within the Raheja family. This is a prominent presence in India's construction and real estate sector. The patriarch of this group was Gopal Raheja. He died on 18th March 2014 after a very long and difficult illness. Gopal Raheja was survived by his three children: Sandeep, his son, and his two daughters Sonali Arora and Sabita Narang. In the main suits, Gopal Raheja, Sonali and Sabita are among those arrayed against Sandeep.

(3.) While Sabita does oppose Sandeep's case, she does not entirely support her father's. Instead, she claimed that there was at some earlier point in time, around 1995-1996, a separation amongst the members of the previous generation of the Raheja family, i.e., between Gopal Raheja and his own siblings; and on that separation Gopal Raheja and his three children each took an equal undivided 1/4th share in the assets and property that are the subject matter of Gopal Raheja's 2012 suit.