A prime property purchased by late actor Sridevi on East Coast Road (ECR) near Chennai has become the subject of a legal dispute, with three individuals staking ownership. This has prompted her husband, renowned Bollywood film producer Boney Kapoor, to approach the Madras High Court seeking cancellation of what he terms a “fraudulent legal heirship certificate” obtained by the trio.
Sridevi, who passed away in 2018, had bought the property with a farmhouse abutting the coastline in 1998.
Hearing Kapoor’s writ petition, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh directed the Tahsildar of Tambaram Taluk to decide within four weeks on the petitioner’s representation to cancel the heirship certificate issued in favour of the three individuals now claiming rights over the property.
In his plea, Kapoor sought directions to the Chengalpattu District Collector and the Tambaram Tahsildar to act on his representation made in April this year. He submitted that Sridevi had purchased the land in 1998 from M.C. Sambanda Mudaliar of Mylapore, and her family had been in absolute possession of the property since then, using it as a farmhouse.
The original title holder, Mudaliar, had three sons and two daughters, who executed a partition deed in 1960. Based on this deed, Sridevi bought and registered the property.
Recently, however, three individuals—claiming to be the second wife and two children of one of Mudaliar’s sons—produced a 2005 heirship certificate to claim a share. Kapoor contested the jurisdiction of the Tambaram Tahsildar to issue such a certificate, noting that Mudaliar’s family resided in Mylapore, not Tambaram.
Kapoor further challenged the claim of the alleged second wife, who said she married in 1975, arguing that the marriage could not be valid as the man’s first wife lived until 1999. On these grounds, Kapoor asserted that the trio could not qualify as Class I or Class II heirs under the Hindu Succession Act. He also alleged that they have been harassing him by filing multiple civil suits and petitions before revenue authorities to press a false claim over the property.