A 58-year-old woman along with her brothers allegedly sold off a huge piece of property in prime central Mumbai, worth over Rs 50 crore, to a developer without informing her cousins, who had equal share in the buildings.
The woman, identified as Abida Jaffar Ismail, a native of Karnataka, was arrested from Mysore hotel by the Mumbai police.
According to a report in Times of India, the property measuring more than 2 acres is located at Delai Road in Lower Parel with three existing tenanted buildings.
The report quoted police as saying that the complainant in the case is Abida’s cousin brother Ayaz Kapadia. The huge property is in the joint name of Ayaz Kapadia’s late father Jaffar Kapadia and his brother Latif Kapadia, the publication mentioned.
• Jaffar and Latif’s joint property, consisting of three CTS number, gains even more value as Lower Parel has now turned into a business hub.
• The three tenanted buildings are Zia Masoom Chawl, Bhaiya Chapra Chawl and Irani chawl.
• The buildings consist of several tenants who have been regularly paying monthly rents to Latif’s family, and Latif’s eldest son Aziz (74) would handle maintenance and other issues of these properties.
• Elaborating on the family members and their share, TOI quoted an officer probing the case as saying that Latif has three sons and two daughter — Aziz, Rahim, Amina, Abida and Malik.
• Jaffar, on the other hand, is survived by Farzana, Rukshana, Rehana, Amin, Anwar, Mehzabeen and Ayaz, who is the complainant in the case, the officer was quoted.
According to TOI, Ayaz recently learnt that Latif and his family allegedly signed a deal with Big Tree Developers by preparing a false declaration of 100% ownership of all the three premises.
Ayaz alleged in his complaint that Latif’s family had registered the false documents in the office of the joint sub registrar, old customs office without their knowledge, thus cheating them of their shares.
Ayaz has also filed legal proceedings against Rahim Latif Kapadia, Amina Usman, Abida Jaffar Ismail (who has been arrested by general cheating cell of the EOW) and Malik Latif Kapadia.
Police said that Amina has power of attorney of her brothers and has signed the documents with the developer. She also accepted Rs 3.5 crore and was promised two flats in the new buildings.
The report stated that it is not clear what was the deal amount, but police have calculated the estimated price of the three properties to be Rs 50 crore.
The publication mentioned that during preliminary inquiries, it was learnt that Amina and her two brothers, Rahim and Malik, were in need of money, so they conspired to secretly sign a deal with the developer, who is now stuck in litigation.
TOI quoted police as saying the accused had similarly tried to sell off the same property to another developer earlier, but the deal didn’t fructify. The case is pending in the high court.
According to legalserviceindia.com, a sale of co-owned property can be made to a third party if the co-sharers reach a settlement for division of said property by metes and bound and give an NOC for the same.
In absence of division by proper laws (an accepted system defining and describing the boundaries of property), no undivided property can be given in possession to the stranger “unless there is a decree of partition, or there is an arrangement already reached amongst the parties and which divides property by metes and bounds”.
The provisions under law regulating the same; Section 4 of the Partition Act, 1893 and provisions of Section 44 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882. The object of these provisions is to keep-off strangers who may purchase the undivided share of a co-sharer of an immovable property, the journal stated.
