Bombay HC Dismisses Interim Application in HUF Partition Suit, Finds Mutually Destructive Pleas and No Foundational Evidence

Justice Farhan Dubash dismissed an interim application seeking protection of properties claimed as HUF assets, finding the plaintiffs presented no cogent evidence and contradictory legal foundations.

Justice Farhan P. Dubash, sitting singly in the Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court, dismissed Interim Application No. 989 of 2026, filed by six plaintiffs from the Awatramani family seeking urgent protective orders over a portfolio of Mumbai properties. The plaintiffs claimed the properties formed either the assets of the “Jotumal and Sons HUF” or the self-acquired estate of their deceased mother, late Veena Awatramani. The court found that the plaintiffs had produced no documentary evidence to establish an ancestral nucleus, advanced mutually destructive legal pleas simultaneously, and had offered no satisfactory explanation for a prolonged delay in challenging a 2017 gift deed. The application was dismissed on 1 July 2026 with no order as to costs.

The Suit and the Properties in Dispute

Suit No. 17 of 2026 was filed by Arti Varun Kejriwal (Plaintiff No. 1), Sushma Seksaria (Plaintiff No. 2), and four other plaintiffs who are the children of Plaintiff Nos. 1 and 2 respectively. The defendants are Vandana Awatramani (Defendant No. 1) and her two children (Defendant Nos. 2 and 3), who are the widow and children of the plaintiffs' deceased brother, late Vinay Awatramani. Other defendants include Beena Awatramani (Defendant No. 4), the partnership firm M/s. Hotel Kemps Corner (Defendant No. 7), and the purchasers of a flat (Defendant Nos. 8 and 9).

The plaintiffs and defendants trace their lineage to late Jotumal Awatramani. His son Newandram had two sons, Lal and Sundar Awatramani. Sundar and his wife Veena are the parents of the plaintiffs and the deceased Vinay. The suit properties are divided into two schedules. The Schedule 1 Assets, described as joint family properties, include a shareholding and hotel business at 45, New Marine Lines (West End Hotel), a 50% partnership interest in M/s. Hotel Kemps Corner at 131, August Kranti Road, Kemps Corner, six hotel rooms at Abhay Chambers, a residential flat at Akash Ganga on Bhulabhai Desai Road (Cumballa Hill), shares in M/s. Awatramani Investments Private Limited, and a commercial premises at Shanti Niketan, Mahim. The Schedule 2 Assets, described as late Veena's self-acquired properties, comprise a 1/12th share in Amar Jivan Bungalow at Worli and two bank accounts held by her.

The reliefs sought in the suit include a declaration that the Schedule 1 Assets constitute HUF property, a decree for partition, cancellation of certain registered gift deeds and transfer deeds, and in the alternative, a declaration that a Will executed by late Veena on 4 June 2024 is valid and binding.

The Interim Application and the Akash Ganga Transaction

The interim application was filed on 26 August 2025, principally targeting the Akash Ganga flat. When the matter came up on 10 September 2025, the court was informed that third-party rights had already been created in the flat. The purchasers, Defendant Nos. 8 and 9, were subsequently impleaded and additional reliefs were sought challenging the transaction.

The plaintiffs alleged that a Gift Deed dated 22 February 2017, by which late Veena had purportedly gifted the Akash Ganga flat to her son late Vinay, was procured by fraud, coercion and undue influence. They further alleged that Defendant Nos. 1 to 3 transferred the flat to Defendant Nos. 8 and 9 by a Deed of Transfer dated 28 August 2025 in a clandestine manner, despite public notices and letters from the plaintiffs' advocates cautioning against dealings with the property. The plaintiffs pointed to Clause 11 of that Deed of Transfer, which contains an indemnity relating to the present proceedings, as evidence of the purchasers' prior knowledge of the dispute. They also alleged that the flat was deliberately undervalued by approximately 30%.

Rival Contentions on the HUF Claim

Mr. Ashok Dhanuka, appearing for the plaintiffs, argued that the family's timber business, carried on in the name “Jotumal Sons”, constituted the ancestral nucleus. He relied upon a Deed of Dissolution dated 28 April 1956 as evidence of a structured, income-generating family enterprise. He further argued that the Defendants' own reliance on a Deed of Family Arrangement dated 15 February 2010, under which Plaintiff No. 1 is alleged to have relinquished her rights, itself amounted to an admission that the suit properties were treated as HUF properties. He relied on the Supreme Court decisions in D.S. Lakshmaiah v. L. Balasubramanyam (2003) 10 SCC 310 and Angadi Chandranna v. Shankar 2025 SCC OnLine SC 877 for the proposition that once an HUF and an ancestral nucleus are established, a rebuttable presumption arises that subsequently acquired properties are joint family properties.

On the question of non-impleadment of other branches of the alleged HUF, Mr. Dhanuka submitted that the plaintiffs asserted rights only in respect of properties falling to the branch of late Newandram Awatramani, and therefore the other branches were neither necessary nor proper parties. He relied on Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. v. Regency Convention Centre and Hotels Pvt. Ltd. (2010) 7 SCC 417.

Mr. Sharan Jagtiani, Senior Advocate for Defendant Nos. 1 to 3, contested maintainability at the outset. On the HUF claim, he argued that the Deed of Dissolution of 1956 dissolved the partnership that year, whereas the Akash Ganga flat was acquired around 1973 and Hotel Kemps Corner was constituted only in 1978. A gap of seventeen to twenty-two years with no connecting material, he submitted, rendered the nexus entirely speculative. He further argued that the plaintiffs' simultaneous reliance on a Will and on HUF character was inherently inconsistent, and that the validity of the Will, which the defendants disputed, could be adjudicated only by the competent Testamentary Court. He relied on Ravinder Nath Agarwal v. Yogender Nath Agarwal & Ors. AIR 2021 SC 3156 on the Will point, and on N. Thajudeen v. Tamil Nadu Khadi and Village Industries Board 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3037 on the submission that a third party cannot seek revocation of a registered gift deed after the donor's death.

Mr. Karl Tamboly for Defendant No. 7 (Hotel Kemps Corner) submitted that the plaintiffs had never been partners of the firm and had no role in its management. He argued that if Hotel Kemps Corner were HUF property, the HUF itself would have had to be a partner; individual partners' interests could not be recharacterised as HUF property merely because the consideration may have come from dividends of another alleged HUF asset.

Mr. Haresh Jagtiani, Senior Advocate for Defendant No. 4, submitted that upon the intestate death of late Lal Awatramani in 1992, his estate, including a 21% partnership interest in Hotel Kemps Corner and Room No. 8, devolved upon late Shantibai and Defendant No. 4 as his Class I heirs, and that late Shantibai had relinquished her share in favour of Defendant No. 4, making Defendant No. 4 the sole owner.

Mr. Rumi Mirza for Defendant Nos. 8 and 9 submitted that they were bona fide purchasers for valuable consideration, complete strangers to the family dispute, and that the purchasers had issued a public notice dated 9 May 2025 prior to the transaction.

The Court's Reasoning

Justice Dubash framed the analysis around the three-part test for interlocutory relief: prima facie case, balance of convenience, and irreparable injury. He observed that unless the first is satisfied, the remaining two do not arise.

On the HUF claim, the court held that there is no legal presumption that every Hindu family possesses joint family property, or that every property in the name of a family member assumes HUF character. The burden rests upon the party asserting HUF character to first establish the existence of a joint family nucleus of sufficient strength and then demonstrate a reasonable nexus between that nucleus and the acquisition of the specific properties. The court observed that the very Supreme Court decisions relied upon by the plaintiffs — D.S. Lakshmaiah and Angadi Chandranna — emphasised this burden, which the plaintiffs themselves had failed to discharge.

The sole document produced was the Deed of Dissolution of 28 April 1956. The court held that this document, at its highest, showed that a commercial partnership existed and was dissolved in 1956. It could not, without more, establish the existence of an HUF or an ancestral nucleus capable of financing acquisitions made seventeen to twenty-two years later. No books of account, income-tax records, balance sheets, financial statements, acquisition documents or any contemporaneous evidence was produced. The court noted that such material found no reference in the pleadings either; it was neither relied upon nor was leave sought to produce it.

The alleged Family Arrangement of 15 February 2010 was also rejected as proof. The court held that the execution of a family arrangement does not determine the juridical character of the properties dealt with, and cannot be elevated into proof of HUF existence in the complete absence of foundational evidence.

The court then addressed the mutually destructive nature of the plaintiffs' two legal foundations. If the Schedule 1 Assets were coparcenary HUF properties, late Veena could not ordinarily exercise absolute testamentary authority over them. Conversely, if rights flowed under her Will, the premise is that she held them in her individual capacity capable of testamentary disposition. The court held that both propositions could not simultaneously co-exist in respect of the same properties, and that “the Plaintiffs cannot come to Court with such mutually inconsistent and destructive pleas.”

The inconsistency was compounded by a further contradiction: the plaintiffs alleged that every transfer effected by late Veena during her lifetime, including the 2017 Gift Deed, was the product of fraud, coercion and undue influence, while simultaneously seeking enforcement of her 2024 Will. The court found no prima facie material justifying treating one document as genuine and the other as fraudulent.

On the impleadment issue, the court held that if the properties truly belong to an HUF originating from late Jotumal Awatramani, any adjudication on the existence of that HUF and the shares of its members would necessarily affect every branch. A partition confined to one branch of an alleged larger HUF is, the court found, conceptually incompatible with the plaintiffs' own pleaded case. The reliance on Mumbai International Airport was held to be misplaced; applying that very principle, every branch through late Jotumal would prima facie be a necessary party.

On the Akash Ganga flat, the court noted that the plaintiffs had knowledge of the 2017 Gift Deed since at least December 2021, when both late Veena and late Vinay were still alive. Proceedings were instituted only in August 2025, after both had died. No satisfactory explanation was offered for this prolonged inaction. The court held that such unexplained delay materially diluted the urgency asserted and weakened the credibility of the case. Having found no prima facie proprietary interest in the flat, the court held that the question of restraining the subsequent transfer to Defendant Nos. 8 and 9 did not arise. Allegations of undervaluation, clandestine transfer and purchaser knowledge remained disputed questions that could not substitute proof of the plaintiffs' own title.

The court summarised the application as resting on five sequential and unsupported assumptions: that an HUF existed, that it possessed a substantial ancestral nucleus, that the nucleus continued for decades, that subsequent acquisitions were financed from it, and that every property in Schedule 1 consequently acquired HUF character. None of those assumptions was supported by cogent material. The court held that the jurisdiction to grant interim injunctions cannot be exercised on speculative or conjectural claims, and that the plaintiffs had failed to cross even the threshold of establishing a credible and legally sustainable prima facie right.

Order

Justice Farhan P. Dubash dismissed Interim Application No. 989 of 2026 in its entirety. The court found the application devoid of merit, stating that the plaintiffs' claim suffered from the dual infirmities of absence of foundational evidence and mutually destructive pleas, and was “founded more on suspicion than on prima facie proof.” No order as to costs was made. The court separately clarified that the defendants remain at liberty to adopt such proceedings as are available in law to challenge the maintainability of the suit itself, a question the court expressly declined to examine at the interim stage.