Court issues notices to Delhi Govt, Ranbaxy MD and 4 others

New Delhi, July 21 (UNI) A city court today issued notices to the Delhi government, Ranbaxy managing director Malvinder Mohan Singh and chief executive officer of Fortis Healthcare Shivinder Mohan Singh, their mother Nimmi Parvinder Singh and Manjit Singh, the second son Dr Bhai Mohan Singh in a petition seeking execution of a will by the founder of the Ranbaxy Laboratories.

While issuing notices, additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Vinay kumar Gupta fixed July 27 as the next date of hearing. Yesterday, Max Healthcare chairman Bhai Analjit Singh had filed a petition for grant of probate of the will of his father and founder of Ranbaxy Laboratories Dr Bhai Mohan Singh in Tis Hazari district courts.

While stating that the will, dated August 24, 2005, was the last and final Will document of Bhai Mohan Singh, the petition filed in a city court by Analjit said that the executors were desirous of "obtaining the probate in order to implement the last wishes of Dr Bhai Mohan Singh." The petition, filed through lawyer K R Chawla, stated that Bhai Mohan Singh on August 24, 2005 had intimated the petitioners and the executors about the Will and had kept the registered will document in a sealed cover with his close friend and confidant M M Sabharwal.

According to Analjit, Sabharwal had personally handed over the Will to him after the death of his father on March 27, this year in the presence of other two executors BB Sawhney and Amoolya Kumar Sharma.

The dispute in the Ranbaxy promoter family over the 2.6-acre prime residential property on Aurangzeb Road and 1&2 South End Lane had surprisingly started on a very happy note in 1970s.

The members of the joint hindu family comprising Ranbaxy founder Bhai Mohan Singh, his wife Avtar Mohan Singh and his three sons-- late Dr Parvinder Singh, Manjit Singh and Analjit Singh-- had pooled their portions of land to form a company Delhi Guest House (DGH) Ltd to start a hotel in 1973. This was permitted by the then prevailing DDA norms. Each family had transferred their respective portions of the property to DGH in lieu of its shares.

This was revealed by Ranbaxy Laboratories CEO Malvinder Singh in hispetition seeking restraint on his uncle Max India chairman Analjit Singh, and Delhi Guest House Ltd (DGH) from converting the property from lease-hold to free-hold.

According to him, it was only on the instruction of the joint family, that the Land and Development Office had granted a single lease of the entire property in the DGH's name.

UNI XC VD KP1922