The Bombay High Court has dismissed Birla’s plea over a stake in Century Mills property in Worli. The order comes as a relief to industrialist Nusli Wadia, who had opposed Century’s originating summons against him.
Justice R D Dhanuka said that this court has no jurisdiction to decide the originating summons taken out by Century Textiles & Industries in view of Section 41 of the Presidency Small Causes Act and in view of the filing of a suit by Wadia in the small causes court. The fate of the property battle between the Birlas and the Wadias over the prime piece of land occupied by Century Mill will now be decided by the small causes court, posted a hearing in May.
The HC had to decide if it had the jurisdiction to hear and decide issues raised by a Birla group company Century Textiles against Wadia, whose great-grandfather leased his land to the company to run only a mill. Century Textiles and Industries, founded in 1897 and now led by Kumar Mangalam Birla, in 2009 moved the Bombay HC seeking interpretation of certain clauses of a 999-year lease deed issued in the late 1800s by industrialist Nusli Wadia’s father in its favour. Wadia in 2009 terminated the lease deed and sought eviction of the Birlas from the leasehold land, which is almost 50,000 sq. yard. But Birla's plea in the HC, through senior counsel Iqbal Chagla, is that they are entitled to retain the land even after the closure of the mill in 2008.
Represented by senior counsel Rafique Dada and solicitor Shrikant Doijode, Wadia raised a preliminary issue of jurisdiction of Birla's plea to even be entertained by the HC. They denied Birla's contention that it was entitled to a relief and said it was the small causes court which could hear and decide landlord-tenant issues, even when it involved a former tenant, as in this case due to termination of lease deed due to violations of lease conditions. The lease said the land could be used to build a mill and mill-related structures only, and not other structures that the company has put up. In December 2010, the small causes court stayed any new construction on the leasehold land. A majority part of the Century Mill is owned as freehold land by the Birlas through the Century Textiles Company.
