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Jinnahs daughter moves HC for fathers Mumbai home: IBNLive.com > Videos - Video news Report



BATTLE ON: Pakistan has staked claim to the house too, asking for it to be converted into Pakistan's embassy in Bombay.

Jinnah's daughter moves HC for father's Bombay home

CNN-INDIA

Published on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 at 15:55

New Delhi: Dina Wadia, daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah has staked a claim to her father's house on Malabar Hill, Bombay.

The founder of Pakistan had constructed the Bungalow in 1938 and lived there until Partition.

Dina Wadia moved the Bombay High Court on Tuesday claiming possession of the house. She's 88 years old, a British citizen and the mother of textile tycoon Nusli Wadia.

She has also filed an RTI application seeking the details of the plans for the house.

Pakistan has staked claim to the house too, asking for it to be converted into Pakistan's embassy in Bombay. But India has consistently denied the claim.

The property has been vacant for the past 23 years. The government is scheduled to start using the bungalow as the Center for Arts and Culture from August 15.

According to Wadia, the (then) State of Bombay took over the property, because Jinnah's sister Fatima was the trustee of Jinnah's will, and had been declared an evacuee those who migrated to Pakistan post-partition in 1949.

However, Wadia now says that her father's will was not probated by the Bombay High Court and therefore had no effect on any operation of law. Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to his legal heir.

Also, she is the sole legal heir of Jinnah's property, both under Hindu Law (applicable to Khoja community before independence, to which Jinnah belonged) or the Shia Muslim law, her petition claims.