PTI
Mumbai, Nov 3: The seafront bungalow on Malabar Hill built by Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was at the centre of a long battle between his daughter Dina Wadia and the Indian government.
Dina died in New York Thursday aged 98. Her petition to regain control of her childhood home is still pending final hearing before a division bench of the Bombay High Court.
The palatial ‘Jinnah House’, originally known as South Court, witnessed meetings of the Muslim League and a crucial meeting between Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah before partition.
Dina, born to Jinnah’s Parsi wife, Rattanbai Petit, in London in August 1919, had insisted that the house, designed in European-style architecture, be called South Court.
In 2007, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf had expressed his desire to acquire the house as Pakistan’s property to convert it into a consulate. In August 2007, Dina (then 88), approached the Bombay High Court with a petition claiming that the title of the mansion be handed over to her as she was the only heir to Jinnah.
Dina spent many years in Mumbai but had been living in the US since decades. In her petition, she said she wished to spend her remaining years in the house in Mumbai where she had spent her childhood. Dina had claimed that the bungalow could not be classified as “evacuee property” as her father had died without leaving behind a will.
The petition last came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and AM Badar on July 28 this year which adjourned it to September 7. It has not come up for hearing since then.
Soon after her petition was filed, the high court had directed the Centre to file an affidavit in response. In October 2007, the government filed its affidavit stating that Jinnah House belongs to the government and that only Jinnah’s sister Fatima or her legal heir can claim the property.
Dina said the state of Bombay took over the property, as Fatima was the trustee of Jinnah’s will, and had been declared an evacuee (those who migrated to Pakistan post-partition) in 1949. Dina, in her petition, claimed that her father’s will was not probated by the Bombay High Court and therefore had no effect in law. Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to Jinnah’s legal heir. Dina said she is the sole legal heir of Jinnah, both under Hindu Law (applicable to the Khoja community–to which Jinnah belonged–before Independence) or the Shia Muslim law.
In its reply, the Centre claimed that her petition is not maintainable and is barred by unexplained delay.
The reply filed by G Balasubramanian, deputy secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs, had stated that the Centre had issued a notification on June 27, 1949 under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, by which the Jinnah House vested with the Custodian. On June 10, 1955, another notification was issued under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, by which the right, title and interest was vested in the Government of India.
Jinnah had bequeathed Jinnah House to his unmarried sister Fatima by his will dated May 30, 1939. Fatima migrated to Pakistan at the time of partition and was declared an evacuee and hence the property was taken over by the Indian government under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, the Centre’s affidavit said. In August 2010, the HC had ordered status quo, but permitted the Centre to renovate the bungalow without making structural changes.
