Kamal Ghorui
The legal battle surrounding the estate of late industrialist Sunjay Kapur has taken a new turn now with his mother Rani Kapur approaching the Delhi High Court to challenge the validity of a family trust bearing her name. For those not in the know, after Sunjay Kapur passed away in June last year, She has alleged that the trust was fraudulently set up and misused to unlawfully divert assets that originally belonged to her. According to the latest update from ANI, Justice Vikas Mahajan on Wednesday stepped aside from hearing the civil suit filed by Rani Kapur. Following his recusal, the High Court ordered that the matter be placed before a different Bench on Thursday, January 29. The court declined to immediately issue a status quo order concerning the Rani Kapur Family Trust, which had been established prior to Sunjay Kapur’s death. However, a Bench led by Justice Mini Pushkarna issued summons in Rani Kapur’s plea seeking the annulment of the RK Family Trust and called for responses from Priya Kapur and 22 other respondents.
In her petition, Rani Kapur claimed that the trust was formed without her informed approval and effectively stripped her of assets that were rightfully hers. She further alleged that she was compelled to sign documents without being adequately briefed on their nature or legal consequences, and that some papers were signed while left blank. According to her, these actions were part of a broader plan to reorganise the family’s estate through the trust, to her disadvantage.The plea also states that when Rani Kapur later obtained photocopies of the trust deed, she discovered provisions that allowed the trust’s assets to be used solely for Sunjay Kapur’s benefit during his lifetime, completely excluding her. It further claims that following his death, 60 per cent of the trust’s corpus was allocated to his third wife, Priya Kapur, while the remaining portion was designated for the benefit of his grandchildren, Samaira Kapur and Kiaan Kapur, his children with actor Karishma Kapoor, and Azairus Kapur, his son with Priya Kapur.Sunjay Kapur, who served as the chairperson of Sona Comstar, passed away last year after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing polo in London. He was previously married to designer Nandita Mahtani and later to actor Karishma Kapoor, with whom he had two children, Samaira and Kiaan. Karisma and Sunjay got divorced in 2016. In 2017, he married model-actor and entrepreneur Priya Kapur, and the couple had a son, Azarius.
