Caretaker of yesteryear actress Nimmi booked for misappropriating her assets

According to the FIR registered by the Santacruz police on November 11, Shaikh, who was under Nimmi’s employment from 2003 till her death in March 2020, allegedly misappropriated the actress’ two flats in Juhu, two fixed deposits worth nearly ₹2 crore and some items of jewellery

Mumbai: More than six years after yesteryear actress Nawab Banu Nimmi Ali Raza, popularly known as Nimmi, passed away due to Covid-19, police have booked her caretaker Asrar Iqbal Shaikh for allegedly misappropriating her assets for personal gain, thereby defrauding her adopted son and his family, who comprise her legal heirs.

Nimmi passed away due to Covid-19 on March 25, 2020

According to the first information report (FIR) registered by the Santacruz police on November 11, Shaikh, who was under Nimmi’s employment from 2003 till her death in March 2020, allegedly misappropriated the actress’ two flats in Juhu, two fixed deposits worth nearly ₹2 crore and some items of jewellery while judicial validation of her will was pending before Bombay High Court. He even refused an offer to split the assets on equal basis between himself and the actress’ heir and threatened the heir’s power of attorney holder, Mohammad Yunus Salim Durrani, the FIR states.

Shaikh has been booked under sections 404 (dishonest misappropriation of property possessed by deceased person), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code.

Durrani, the complainant in the case and Nimmi’s nephew, owns a two-wheeler garage in Girgaon. His grandfather GM Durrani was a playback singer in Bollywood and the family settled in Mumbai after independence. Some years later, his grandmother’s sister, Wahidan Bi, also moved to the city along with her daughter, Nawab Banu or Nimmi, who had a strong desire to work in films.

Nimmi started with a small role in Barsaat (1949) and went on to become one of the top actresses of her time, working alongside star actors like Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar. She married Ali Raza, a renowned scriptwriter, and in 2003, the couple bought two flats in Neha Apartment, a housing society on Juhu Tara Road in Santacruz West; both flats were registered in Nimmi’s name. The same year, the couple also hired Asrar Iqbal Shaikh as a domestic help.

In his complaint to the Santacruz police, submitted in 2020, Durrani said that after Ali Raza passed away on November 1, 2007, his aunt Nimmi resided alone in the Juhu flats. Due to her advanced age and the need for frequent medical treatment, she opened joint bank accounts with Shaikh with an ‘either or survivor’ operating mandate. Consequently, Asrar handled all of her financial transactions till her death on March 25, 2020 due to Covid-19.

Prior to her death, Nimmi had executed a will whose validation is pending before the Bombay High court, Durrani said in his complaint. Shaikh served as one of the witnesses in the will, which bequeathed her assets – comprising fixed deposits worth ₹1.23 crore and ₹54 lakh, the two flats in Juhu and certain items of jewellery – to Ali Sayyed Parvez, her adopted son and the biological son of her sister, Shabab Bano. After Parvez’s death, the assets were to pass on to his wife and children, as per Nimmi’s will.

While Parvez, who resided in Britain, passed away due to Covid-19 on December 28, 2020, Shaikh misappropriated Nimmi’s assets instead of handing them over to Parvez’s wife, Salma Neki Parveen. She too resided in Britain along with her children and since it would not be feasible for them to travel to India repeatedly to address the property dispute, she entrusted Durrani with the full responsibility of handling the matter. Accordingly, a power of attorney was executed in his name and he approached the Santacruz police with the complaint.

After Durrani filed the complaint in 2020, Shaikh approached him and proposed a settlement: he suggested selling the property and splitting the proceeds equally between them. When Durrani rejected the proposal, he allegedly threatened and pressured the former, the FIR stated.

HT reached out to Deputy Commissioner of Police Mohit Kumar Garg regarding the six-year delay in registration of the FIR, but did not receive any response.

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