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The Supreme Court today (September 16) issued notice on a plea to revive a suit raising a claim over late actor Sridevi's property near East Coast Road in Chennai.

The petitioners, MC Sivakami & MC Natarajan, have approached the Court challenging the Madras High Court's order which rejected her suit on an application by Sridevi's husband Boney Kapoor and daughters Janhvi and Kushi Kapoor.

A bench comprising Justice KV Viswanathan and Justice Arun Pillai today issued notice to Boney Kapoor, Janhvi and Kushi Kapoor on the petition and ordered a status quo till the next date of hearing.

 MC Sivakami, her brother MC Natarajan, and their mother Chandrabhanu claim a share in the land and are seeking to declare 4 sale deeds, through which Boney's late wife Sridevi and her sister had acquired the 4.7-acre property, as null and void. They have claimed that the sale deeds were fraudulent and that they had a share in the property since it belonged to their paternal grandfather.

Before the Trial Court, Kapoor had filed an application under Order 7 Rule 11 (a) and (b) and Section 151 of the CPC, arguing that the plaintiffs' claim was not legally sustainable and the marriage of Chandrabhanu itself was void as it was contracted during the subsistence of the first marriage, thus rendering it void ab initio under law, constituting an act of bigamy.

The trial judge, however, dismissed Kapoor's application for rejecting the plaint, noting that the points raised by Kapoor were disputed question of fact which could be gone into only at the time of trial. Challenging this order, Kapoor and his daughters approached the High Court.

Kapoor claimed that this fact was suppressed in the plea, and such suppression of a vital and legally relevant fact constitutes a deliberate attempt to mislead the court. He claimed that the act amounted to fraud, vitiating the very foundation of the claim. It was argued that the plaintiffs had previously made a claim on the property, which was rejected by the court and confirmed by the Supreme Court. It was submitted that these facts were suppressed and the same was not appreciated by the trial court. Kapoor argued that the plaintiffs had played fraud on the court to obtain a favourable order.

Justice TV Tamilselvi of the High Court called the claim “vexatious” to grab the property by abusing the process of law, and the same was not permissible under law. 

The High Court found force in Kapoor's argument and noted that even though the plaintiffs were aware of the first marriage of their father Chandrasekaran, they had suppressed the fact in their plaint. The court also noted that though the sale deed was executed in 1988, it was not challenged by Chandrasekaran during his lifetime. The court also noted that since the plaintiffs are not class-1 legal heirs of MC Chandrasekaran, they had no locus standi to proceed with the suit.

It also observed that the sale deeds were in existence since 1988, and it was totally unbelievable that the plaintiffs came to know about it only in the year 2023. The court thus ruled that the plea, which was filed after 40 years, was barred by limitation. Thus, considering all the facts, the High Court allowed the plea by Kapoor to reject the plaint and ordered accordingly

Case Details: M.C.SIVAKAMI AND ANR. v BONEY KAPOOR AND ORS|SLP(C) No. 23267/2026

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