Chhabria's mother claims share in Shaw Wallace

Ranibai Rajaram Chhabria, mother of the late Manohar Rajaram Chhabria, has challenged the merger of Shaw Wallace with Vijay Mallya-promoted United Spirits, saying she was entitled to a fifth of her deceased son's estate.

Ranibai Chhabria has contended that the Calcutta High Court's approval to the amalgamation of Shaw Wallace with Vijay Mallya-run United Spirits Ltd (USL) would dilute her right to inherit a share of the estate.

She claimed that Manohar Chhabria had died intestate in April 2002 and under Hindu law she was entitled to a share of his property. However, Chhabria's wife and three daughters had taken control of the group, citing a will he left behind and have since sold certain businesses, including the liquor arm.

Accusing her son's family of denuding the company of valuable assets, Ranibai said she had learnt from various newspaper reports in 2004 that her daughter-in-law, Vidya Chhabria, tried to dispose of the Chhabria family's controlling shareholding in Shaw Wallace.

Seeking to restrain United Spirits from taking any steps to delete the name of Shaw Wallace from the Registrar of Companies, Ranibai said the high court was wrong in refusing to examine the allegation of assets being siphoned away before the company was sold, which adversely affected Shaw Wallace's valuations.

Besides, she said the High Court should have taken into consideration a Dubai court decision that held that she was entitled to her share in the estate left behind by her son as the mother of the deceased .

The high court should have directed an independent investigation into Shaw Wallace's affairs before sanctioning the amalgamation scheme when an allegation was made that the scheme was merely a cloak to "conceal and camouflage the illegal acts and misdeeds of its directors," the petition stated.

Stating that she had even objected to the appointments of Vidya as chairperson and her daughter Komal as the director, the petitioner said that the will, excluding her from the list of beneficiaries, was not even shown to her.

Last week, a bench headed by Justice S H Kapadia deferred the hearing on the matter by three weeks.