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Centre submits Sorabjee’s papers

In 2002, senior lawyer Soli Sorabjee had told the Central government that Jinnah House was declared an evacuee property on “an erroneous factual and legal basis”.

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Nusli Wadia sought lawyer’s opinion on Jinnah House via RTI

In 2002, senior lawyer Soli Sorabjee, then attorney general of India, had told the Central government that Jinnah House, the Malabar Hill bungalow built by Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was declared an evacuee property on “an erroneous factual and legal basis”.

After examining the contentious issue of the ownership of Jinnah House, Sorabjee had also opined that Jinnah’s daughter, Dina Wadia, who has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court staking claim on Jinnah House, was Jinnah’s sole legal heir and therefore entitled to the bungalow.

Sorabjee’s six-year-old opinion, a document that the Centre had been all along unwilling to make public, was filed before the HC on Tuesday by the Centre along with a fresh affidavit. Dina’s son, industrialist Nusli Wadia, had sought Sorabjee’s opinion under the Right to Information Act. The Centre had initially refused to part with the document. However, the Central Information Commission (CIC) had directed the Centre to provide the information to Nusli Wadia.

In the affidavit filed on Tuesday, the Centre said that the opinion given by Sorabjee was being provided to Wadia as per the directions of the CIC. The opinion is likely to buttress Dina Wadia’s case in the HC. Wadia, 89, who resides in New York, moved HC in July 2007 labeling the government’s move to take over Jinnah House in 1949 by declaring it to be an ‘evacuee property’ to be illegal. She alleged that the government’s decision was based on a wrong premise that Jinnah had willed the property to his sister Fatima, who was declared an evacuee when she left for Pakistan in 1947. Wadia contended that Jinnah’s will was never probated and thus has no legal standing in India.
Thus, being Jinnah’s only child and sole legal heir, she is entitled to the bungalow.
Sorabjee had opined that Dina Wadia’s claim to Jinnah House as the sole legal heir to Jinnah cannot be disputed and suggested that she be granted a long-term lease of the bungalow.

Several competing claims have been made for Jinnah House based on sentiments attached to Jinnah’s legacy like that of the Pakistan government, which wanted to occupy the bungalow for their consulate. After Dina Wadia’s petition, Jinnah’s grand-nephew Mohamed Rajabally Ebrahim,72, has also filed a writ petition in the HC stating he is entitled to 1/6th share in the property and that the government has “no right to squat” over Jinnah House after the repeal of the Displaced Persons (DP) Act, in 2005. The matter will now be heard in November.

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