When there's a will: Forgery claim muddies battle for Kapur's assets

It’s a high-stakes boardroom battle and the gloves are coming off.

- Shruti Kakkar

On Tuesday, the Delhi high court became the latest arena for the inheritance tussle over late business tycoon Sunjay Kapur's ₹30,000 crore estate as Samaira and Kiaan, his children with film actor Karisma Kapoor, accused their stepmother Priya Kapur of “forging” his will and being an “acute gambler”.

Represented by senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, Samaira and Kiaan alleged that Priya, along with witnesses Nitin Sharma and Dinesh Agarwal, had conspired to create the will without Sunjay's involvement.

“If this forgery is proved, she loses all her wealth which she is accumulating under the trust... there’s a clause to that effect.... The lady is an acute gambler. Good luck to her. She (Priya) is not a true inheritor of the spirit of Sunjay Kapur. She is a pretender of Sunjay’s assets,” he submitted, while urging the court to restrain Priya from creating third-party rights in Sunjay’s estate.

On June 12 this year, Kapur, who was the chairperson of Sona Comstar, an automotive technology company, suffered a cardiac arrest while playing polo in London. He was first married to Delhi-based designer Nandita Mahtani, later divorced her and got married to Karisma with two children from that marriage Samaira and Kiaan - divorced the Bollywood star in 2016 and married model-actor and business woman Priya Sachdev the next year. Priya, who was once one of Delhi's best-known society figures, and Kapur have a son, Azarius.