Bombay High Court allows Hiremath siblings to include Bharat Forge shares in intra-family inheritance suit
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday ruled in favor of brothers Sameer Hiremath and Pallavi Swadi, who sought to be allowed to include shareholding shares of listed Kalyani Group companies along with other assets in their ongoing inheritance case against their mother, uncle and cousin.
Siblings who are Sugandha Hiremath’s children Annappa N. Kalyani Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) and Neelkanth A Kalyani approached the civil court in Pune in 2024 against their mother, uncles Baba Kalyani and Gaurishankar Kalyani and three cousins to get their share of inheritance from HUF.
Annappa was the siblings’ great-grandfather and the founder of the Kalyani Group. Neelkanth was his son and Baba was the father of Gaurishankar and Sugandha.
As part of the case, the Hiremath brothers also included several properties which they claimed were purchased with money from the HUFs and hence rightfully belonged to the HUFs rather than individuals.
They later attempted to amend their petition to include more entities in their case; these included promotional shares of two listed companies of the Kalyani Group (Bharat Forge Ltd and Kalyani Steels Ltd) with a combined market capitalization of over 100,000. ₹70,000 crore.
The brothers also sought restriction on voting rights of shareholders in these companies, which they claimed were received from HUF funds.
However, The Pune civil court rejected their appeal to amend their case to include these assets. The brothers later filed a private appeal in the Bombay High Court to allow them to amend their case. The high court ruled in their favor on Monday.
A spokesman for the Kalyani Group dismissed this as a mere procedural development.
The spokesperson said in an email response: “The order is purely procedural and reflects established law allowing a party to seek relief. It does not provide substantive relief to Hiremaths regarding voting rights or ownership, as proposed.” Mint‘s queries.
“All these matters will be decided by the Court after hearing both parties. Presenting this routine procedural order as a substantial gain is misleading and misrepresents the true scope of the Court’s directions,” the spokesman added.
The decision came at such a time that Industrialist Baba Kalyani and his sister Sugandha Hiremath are in the middle of a protracted legal dispute over the ownership of promotional shares in listed chemical company Hikal Ltd, which has a market capitalization of just under ₹200,000. ₹3,000 crore.
