In the battle for the Jinnah House in Malabar Hill, the centre on Monday said that the will of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, which his daughter Dina Wadia, 88, had questioned, was in fact a public document and her ignorance about it was a “brazen denial of a widely documented historical record”.
Wadia had contended that Jinnah’s will of 1939, as per which the property was bequeathed to his sister Fatima, was probated in Pakistan and had no legal standing in India.
She had challenged the centre’s move to take over the Malabar Hill property, worth over Rs 300 crore, claiming to be its legal heir. She had claimed that the government was relying on the wrong premise that the property was willed to Fatima, who was declared an evacuee when she left for Pakistan in 1947. She later died.
Meanwhile, Fatima’s nephew and legal heir Mohammed Ibrahim, a resident of Mumbai, will file an application before the Bombay high court on her behalf, stating that he will have to be heard in the case as the court’s decision will directly affect him. Further arguments will be heard on April 2.
