High-Stakes Legal Battle: Allegations of Forgery in Sunjay Kapur's Rs 30,000 Crore Estate Case

Karishma Kapoor (left) with Sunjay Kapur; Priya Sachdev Kapur (right)

New Delhi:

A dramatic legal battle over businessman Sunjay Kapur's estimated Rs 30,000 crore estate continued in the Delhi High Court as proceedings resumed Monday. Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, representing Karishma Kapoor's children Samaira, 20, and Kiaan, 15, alleged that the will had been forged to deliberately exclude Sunjay's children from his first marriage.

Jethmalani raised serious concerns about the will's authenticity, stating, "There's something very secretive about this will. This 'will' does not involve Sunjay Kapur... and we were not supplied with any documents either."

The lawyer highlighted discrepancies in the document, including the misspelling of Sunjay's son's name and incorrect listing of his daughter's address. "These bloopers are very uncharacteristic of Sunjay Kapur," Jethmalani argued.

"Sunjay Kapur was in excellent health and his Indian property was protected by a tight trust. The circumstantial evidence completely contradicts assumptions about the will's contents. I base this on his phone conversations with his allegedly 'disinherited' children," he added.

"He maintained a very good relationship with his children. How could he possibly write his daughter's address incorrectly and misspell his son's name multiple times?"

Samaira and Kiaan are Sunjay Kapur's children from his marriage with actress Karishma Kapoor. The couple married in September 2003 and divorced in 2016, with Karishma alleging physical and mental abuse. Sunjay subsequently married model Priya Sachdev in 2017 and had a son, Azarias, with her.

The ongoing legal case involves a plea for maintaining status quo regarding the execution of Sunjay Kapur's will—specifically the one presented by his second wife, Priya Sachdev Kapur. Samaira and Kiaan have alleged that Priya "usurped full control" of Sunjay's assets by creating a forged will after his death in the UK in June.

The will being presented as Sunjay's final testament leaves his personal estate to Priya.

Jethmalani referred to the contested will as an "ominously uncertified document" dated March 21. In court, he argued, "We have no information about what happened to the will. It was modified on March 17. The person who modified it remains unclear... but it underwent further modification on March 24."

When questioned by the court about these dates, Priya Kapur's attorney explained that the changing dates—visible in the digital record of the MS Word document—appeared "because the file was being uploaded."

"You can verify... they are all the same document," the counsel stated.

Jethmalani countered, "There was a modification on March 24. They haven't explained this. By March 21, the matter of the will was concluded. Why the three-day delay? Now there appear to be two 'wills'."

The senior advocate also claimed that a private WhatsApp group had been created involving Sunjay, Priya Kapur, and Dinesh Agarwal, allegedly one of Priya's co-conspirators.

The will was transmitted as a .pdf file and its filename was altered twice, according to Jethmalani.

"Two wills were prepared simultaneously... for husband and wife. These were not mutual wills and therefore require explanation," he argued, attempting to implicate the second wife in a conspiracy.

"They exchanged messages about signed wills... the message was acknowledged by Priya, not Sunjay."

"Examining Dinesh Agarwal's phone would reveal there's no group name or phone numbers, and separately, it could be verified that the 'SK will' was only seen, not read."

Jethmalani was referring to WhatsApp's functionality that allows users to control whether messages they receive are marked as 'read' on the sender's device. Users can disable this feature.

Last week's court session also featured dramatic confrontation when Priya Sachdev Kapur was likened to Cinderella's stepmother. In a direct attack, Jethmalani accused her of being 'greedy'.

"She received 60 percent of the assets and allocated 12 percent to her son. She's also getting 75 percent of the trust... yet she remains solely focused on her personal assets."

Meanwhile, Samaira and Kiaan aren't alone in their allegations against Priya; Sunjay's mother, Rani Kapur, has also contested the will, stating 'nothing has been left for me'.

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