Whistleblower blows lid off fraud on court by Parsi bizman

FEW today would have heard of Framroz Edulji Dinshaw, a prominent Parsi financer who had lent a royal sum of ₹2 crore to the Tatas way back in the 1920s, at a time when Bombay was being built on the seven marshy islands that are homing the present megapolis.

- BENN KOCHUVEEDAN

The story of how that loan got converted into a 12.5% shares of Tata Sons, which is worth about $200 billion now, and which ultimately landed in the hands of the Pallonji Mistry family, is not known to most. That secret is likely to be revealed by the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Abhinav Bharat Congress, a think-tank led by Pankaj Phadnis who's a public policy activist and the son of a district judge.

The plea, filed in November 2022, is a public interest disclosure under the Whistleblower Protection Act, 2011. The PIL, heard by Bombay HC chief justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Sarang Kotwal on June 14, 2024, alleges multiple frauds were played on the HC by fellow Parsi industrialist Nusli Wadia, who was appointed the Indian administrator of the New Yorkbased Dinshaw Trust by the HC on December 27, 1972.