The Supreme Court has appointed two retired top court judges as mediators between former IPL boss Lalit Modi and his mother Bina Modi, wife of iate industrialist K K Modi, to resolve a long pending property dispute in the family.
The top court was hearing about Lalit Modi's appeal against the judgement of a division bench of the Delhi High Court that the anti-arbitration injunction lawsuit filed by Bina Modi against her son is still valid.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana has approved former apex court judges Justices Vikramjit Sen and Kurian Joseph as mediators. Both parties have agreed to mediation under Judges Vikramjit Sen and Justice Kurian Joseph. We suggest parties use the Mediation Centre in Hyderabad. We request mediators to take undertakings and we direct parties to maintain confidentiality. The bench, which includes Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli, said that the Mediation to Expedite proceedings should be completed within a period of three months.
A lawsuit was filed by Bina Modi. It tried to restrain the arbitration proceedings initiated by Lalit Modi, founder of the Indian Premier League, in Singapore over the dispute.
The apex court had suggested mediation to the parties and asked them to give names of mediators of their choice.
In December of last year, the high court's division bench held that it has the jurisdiction to decide on Bina Modi's plea challenging Lalit Modi's move to initiate arbitration proceedings in Singapore.
The division bench had set aside the judgment of a single judge of the high court, which had said it did not have the power to decide the anti-arbitration injunction suits filed by Lalit Modi's mother Bina, his sister Charu and brother Samir, and they are open to making such pleas before the arbitral tribunal in Singapore.
The single judge had said an anti-arbitration injunction suit does not lie, so the pleas are not maintainable, and dismissed the matter.
In two separate suits, Bina, Charu and Samir contended that there was a trust deed between the family members and the K K Modi family trust matters cannot be settled through arbitration in a foreign country, according to Indian law.
They have sought permanent injunction restraining Lalit Modi from prosecuting or continuing with the application for emergency measures and any arbitration proceedings against them in Singapore.
The division bench, in its 103-sided judgement passed on December 24, 2020, had said the subject dispute should have been prime facie adjudicated by the single judge, who had to exercise the jurisdiction vested in the court, as all parties are Indian citizens and there is a lot of immovable assets of the trust in India.
In view of the foregoing discussion, we are of the opinion that the single judge has erred by not exercising the jurisdiction that is vested in the court, which required him to adjudicate whether the disputes between the parties, in relation to the trust deed, were per se referable to arbitration.
This is in our opinion a wrong exercise of competences by the single judge. The impugned judgment can't be sustained. The bench said something.
The court ordered the registry to list them for hearing and remanded two civil suits to the single judge for further proceedings in accordance with law.
According to the case, the trust deed was executed in London by K K Modi as settlor managing trustee and Bina, Lalit, Charu and Samir as trustees and in pursuance to an oral family settlement recorded between them on February 10, 2006.
K K Modi died on November 2, 2019 after the dispute emerged among the trustees.
The single judge said that the sale of all assets of the trust has to occur within a year of the death of his father, in view of the lack of unity among trustees regarding the ale of trust assets.
His mother and the two siblings contended that no such sale had been triggered on a true construction of the trust deed.