HC appoints 3-member panel to administer affairs of Breach Candy Club

The division bench was hearing an appeal challenging an October 2015 order of a single judge ordering change in guard at the elite club.

The Bombay high court on Monday appointed a three-member special committee to administer affairs of the city’s oldest elite club, the Breach Candy Club.

The division bench was hearing an appeal challenging an October 2015 order of a single judge ordering change in guard at the elite club. I(HT file photo)

The division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice MS Sonak has included Justice BN Shrikrishna, Justice RY Ganoo and a representative of audit firm Ernst & Yong in the special committee for handling administration of the Breach Candy Swimming Bath Trust.

The division bench was hearing an appeal challenging an October 2015 order of a single judge ordering change in guard at the elite club. It appointed the panel of administrators “in order to avoid unpleasant situation in the day-to-day functioning of the trust.” This comes in after the bench noted that in the wake of allegations levelled by the rival groups against each other, the day-to-day functioning of the club could be affected.

The Breach Candy Club, which runs a swimming pool and a club for its members, was established in 1876 exclusively for European inhabitants of the city. After independence, the club opened up for Indians.

Gerard Shirley, Alon Mooleman, Giovanni Autunno and Any Lehra had approached high court in March 2014 seeking injunctive reliefs against the six-member committee comprising Dipesh Mehta, Vikram Malik, Lalit Agarwal, Jaenette Anand, Marion Panjwani and Benno Lucke. Shirley and others alleged that Mehta and the five others were “trespassers, usurpers and intermediaries” in the trust property.

According to their plea, a few years ago, Dipesh Mehta and Lalit Agarwal started posing themselves as managing committee members and allegedly made several illegal alterations and constructions in the club premises.

Acting on their plea for interim relief, Justice SC Gupte had in October 2015 held that the appointment of the six-member committee for managing affairs of the club ‘prima facie appeared to be illegal’ and the newly elected group was entitled to take charge of affairs of the club.

Shirley and others had filed the plea in their pending suit seeking orders to restrain the six-member group from acting as the members managing committee and obstructing the new committee members from carrying out their duties.