Jinnah's daughter renews claim to his Mumbai house

MUMBAI: The sprawling white colonial residence here of Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Mumbai has once again come into the spotlight, 60 years after independence.

Jinnah's only child, 88-year-old daughter Dina Wadia, is now staking claim for the second time to the contentious Jinnah House, as it is famously known, in upmarket Malabar Hill in south Mumbai.

Wadia, who currently resides in New York, filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court July 31, claiming to be Jinnah's sole legal heir and thus entitled to his property.

"She filed the latest petition after she learnt that the government was planning to convert her father's house into the South Asian Centre of Art and Culture (SACAC)," Wadia's lawyer Shrikanth Doijode said.

The inauguration of the centre is apparently scheduled Aug 15.

Bombay High Court Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachur have asked the central government to file a reply within two weeks.

Wadia, who married Bombay Dyeing group founder Neville Wadia against her father's wishes, is now insisting that the Indian government's move to declare Jinnah House as "evacuee property" is illegal.

The sprawling two-storey colonial bungalow located on Mount Pleasant Road in south Mumbai's prohibitively expensive Malabar Hill was built at an exorbitant price of Rs.200,000 in 1936.

The property spread over 6,500 sq metres is estimated to be worth Rs.10 billion. Its opposite house is the official residence of the chief minister of Maharashtra.

"In her petition, Wadia has stressed that the Indian government's decision was based on the wrong premise that Jinnah had bequeathed the property to his sister Fatima, who was declared an evacuee after she left for Pakistan in 1947 following partition," said Doijode.

"Wadia had spent her youth before her marriage in the house, is the only child of Jinnah and his sole heir to his property, " Doijode told IANS Wednesday.

"Wadia, now a British national, like her aunt, neither left India after partition nor was she declared an evacuee like the former. So she is now claiming what is rightly hers."

Doijode said the Indian government had appropriated the immovable and movable properties of those who had left for Pakistan after the partition of India and such properties were declared as evacuee properties.

Wadia had earlier filed a petition in the Bombay High Court in 1994, staking a claim on the property, but later withdrew it after learning that her aunt Fatima had also staked a claim.

Wadia, whoever, continued to pursue the matter with the government and even sent   numerous missives to successive prime ministers.

It was after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for Jinnah House to make it Pakistan's consulate in Mumbai during their meeting in Delhi in 2005 that Wadia wrote to Singh requesting him to restore her father's property to her.

Jinnah House over the past decades has emerged as an emotive diplomatic point between India and Pakistan.

Since 1980, Pakistan has been requesting India to either sell the property or lease it to its government in order to convert it into a consulate, as a tribute to its founder.

Wadia had earlier made claims to her filial property during the previous National Democratic Alliance government, which had attempted to begin the process of returning the property to her.

Informed sources here said that Jinnah, unhappy with his daughter's marriage to the Bombay Dyeing group founder, had willed the property to his now deceased sister Fatima and not to his daughter Dina.

"In her petition, Wadia has now contended that since her father's will was never probated or endorsed by a judicial certificate to be genuine, it therefore has no legal standing in India," Doijode said.

The petition also states that since Jinnah was a Khoja Shia, he was governed by the Hindu law of succession and inheritance and Wadia was his only legal heir.