Bombay HC puts off hearing of 90-yr-old’s case till 2046, calls it an ego battle

In his one-page order, the bench said the court had suggested that the suit be worked out by tendering an unconditional apology but this wasn't acceptable

Calling the case an ego battle that can easily be put to rest through an apology, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday adjourned a suit filed by a nonagenarian and her daughter till 2046.

HC puts off hearing of 90-yr-old’s case till 2046, calls it an ego battle

In his one-page order, justice Jitendra Jain, who was hearing a defamation suit that stemmed from a dispute over the repairs carried out in a housing society in Malabar Hill, wrote, “List this matter after 2046. At any cost, this matter should not be given priority on the ground that the petitioners are senior citizens or super senior citizens. It is expressly made clear that this matter will not be taken up for hearing before 2046.”

The court was hearing a defamation suit filed by Tariniben Desai, 90, a prominent Gujarati writer and a recipient of awards from the Sahitya Akademi in Gujarat and Maharashtra, and her daughter Dhvani Desai, 57, an animation film-maker, against five members of the managing committee of Shyam Co-operative Housing Society, who served until June 2016 and two others who were managing committee members from 2006-07 to 2009-10.

Justice Jain said, “The court on an earlier occasion had expressed that this suit can be worked out by tendering unconditional apology. However, plaintiff no.1 (Tariniben) who is close to 90 years old, still insists to pursue the suit for defamation. I do not wish to state anything further except that this matter should not be taken up for the next 20 years.” The order running into three paragraphs also stated, “This is one of the matters where the ego fight between the parties at the fag end of their life clogs the system, which prevents the court from taking up the matters which really requires more priority”.

The Desais’ lawyer Swaraj Jadhav said that his clients were aggrieved by the order. “We will definitely challenge the order. We will discuss the matter with our clients and decide our next steps,” said Jadhav.

The housing society in Malabar Hill has 292 members and comprises five buildings called Shyam Niwas and three called Nanak Niwas, in one of which the Desais live. The mother-daughter duo had claimed damages of ₹20 crore from the former members of the housing society’s managing committee for loss of reputation and mental distress they had caused by wrongly calling them ‘defaulters’. They had claimed that since they had questioned the inflated expenses for society repairs, they had to endure harassment for eight years before they filed the suit in 2017. They said that the society, in annual general body meetings, had blamed them for their rising legal expenses and also called them “defaulter members” for not paying their maintenance bills.

The Desais said they had always paid their maintenance bills. However, in 2009, after the repair expenses for Nanak Niwas Block 3 allegedly escalated from ₹50-60 lakh to ₹1 crore, they filed a complaint with the deputy registrar of cooperative societies after which an inspection was carried out. The civil defamation suit filed by the Desais stated that the inspection also found serious mismanagement and misappropriation of funds. They also said that their maintenance dues of ₹10.34 lakh had been cancelled by an authorised officer of the cooperatives department in 2015.