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Rani Kapur moves HC to annul ‘fraudulent’ trust formed to ‘transfer her assets’
The late businessman Sunjay Kapur’s mother, Rani Kapur, filed a suit filed saying the trust was created to deprive her of her entire estate
The late businessman Sunjay Kapur’s mother, Rani Kapur, has moved the Delhi high court, seeking to declare a family trust named after her as null and void, alleging it was fraudulently constituted and used to illegally transfer her assets. The trust was constituted in October 2017 and holds a shareholding in automotive component manufacturer Sona Comstar.
In a suit filed on Tuesday, Rani Kapur said the trust was created to deprive her of her entire estate, including control over the Sona Group of companies. It added that after she suffered a stroke in 2017, her late son and his third wife, Priya Kapur, allegedly exploited her physical dependence to orchestrate a complex scheme by which all her assets were transferred into the trust without her informed consent.
Sunjay Kapur, the chairperson of Sona Comstar, died of cardiac arrest while playing polo in London last year. He was earlier married to designer Nandita Mahtani, and later to actor Karisma Kapoor, with whom he has two children, Samaira and Kiaan. He married model-actor and businesswoman Priya Kapur in 2017, with whom he had a son, Azarius.
Rani Kapur’s plea said that upon receiving photocopies of the trust deed, she discovered that the trust assets were meant to be used exclusively for the benefit of Sunjay Kapur during his lifetime, entirely excluding her. After his demise, 60% of the trust corpus was earmarked for the benefit of Priya Kapur, while the remaining portion was to be utilised for the benefit of her grandchildren, Samaira, Kiaan, and Azairus.
Rani Kapur said that she never knowingly executed any trust that excluded her from all benefits arising from the assets, or one that restricted the enjoyment of the trust solely to one branch of the family, leaving her effectively penniless during her lifetime.
“The aforesaid alleged ‘trust, ‘ though illegally formed and illegally operated over the years, today apparently controls all her assets, properties, as well as the stake in business/companies which belonged exclusively to her, and though she has shown as a settler and trustee of the said trust. It appears that an illegal, unregistered trust was created by Defendant number 1 [Priya Kapur] with the late Mr Sunjay Kapur, wherein all assets of the plaintiff were illegally transferred and diverted instead of the original trust deed being the ‘Dr SK Family Trust’,” the suit said.
“Currently, through this illegal and fraudulent process, the plaintiff has been deprived of her own assets, which are now being used by other defendants, particularly defendant number 1 and aides for their benefit, including assuming control over a majority of shares in the Sona Group of Companies.”
Rani Kapur alleged that her signatures on the purported RK Family Trust deed were forged, a claim she said was corroborated by a forensic expert. She added that she never read the trust deed, was never informed of or made to understand its contents, and was unaware that the document purported to divest her of her entire estate or to make her son the exclusive beneficiary of her legacy.
She has arrayed as defendants 23 parties, including Priya Kapur and her seven grandchildren, Nitin Sharma and Dinesh Agarwal, the witnesses to the will that purportedly bequeathed Sunjay Kapur’s entire estate to Priya Kapur.
The suit was filed days after the Delhi high court reserved a verdict in a plea by Samaira and Kiaan to bar Priya Kapur and Azarius from creating a third-party interest in Sunjay Kapur’s properties.
