‘Good faith’ goes bad in property row in Mumbai

Bhagwan Chandnani, 66, was embroiled in a court battle with his dead business associate’s sons over a shop at Grant Road when, in 2002, a man approached him and, claiming to hold a power of attorney (PoA) for the latter, sought possession of the premises.

Perturbed by the sudden appearance of Bijendra Singh, Chandnani tried to find out whether his late associate Munir Shamsi’s sons Sarfraz and Mujahid, who live abroad, were in India when the power of attorney was purportedly executed.

“I had known Shamsi for eight years before he died, but I’d never heard of this Bijendra Singh,” Chandnani said. His search yielded results when he stumbled upon a notary who went on record to say that the persons to whom he had issued the power of attorney were impersonators.

Chandnani was shocked when he saw a copy of the power of attorney executed on November 20, 2001. “The initials of Shamsi’s son Sarfraz could have been SM, but the PoA said SS Shamsi.” The language of the agreement was unprofessional and the deed was littered with glaring errors of fact, he said.

Using the Right to Information Act, Chandnani tried to find out where the Shamsi brothers were on November 20, 2001, the day the power of attorney was purportedly executed. The executors of a PoA have to personally sign the document before a notary who attests it.

Chandnani’s application reached the Central Information Commission (CIC) in Delhi in April 2009 and he learnt that Shujauddin Qureshi, the notary who had attested the PoA in favour of Bijendra Singh, had done so “in good faith” as his brother Bhupendra was known to him.

“I had no means to verify the identity of the executants as their photographs were not pasted on the PoA and I totally relied on the introduction given to me by the known advocate Bhupendra R Singh who has given the assurance that both the persons are the same persons who have signed the PoA,” an affidavit filed by Qureshi on February 21, 2008, said. But “it now appears that the two gentlemen introduced to me as the executants of the PoA were allegedly not Sarfraz Shamsi and Mujhahid Shamsi but their impersonators”, he said.

“I am told that several such bogus PoAs are made in cases of marriages, divorces, and property suits,” Chandnani said. He filed a police complaint against the notary who had drawn up the power of attorney and also with the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa (BCMG), which has issued a notice to Qureshi.

“The BCMG has the power to take action against advocates who are guilty of misconduct,” council secretary Varsha Rokde said.

“Notaries are advocates first and the BCMG can suspend their sanad for a month or even for life, depending on the nature of misconduct.”