Former CJI’s sons get HC relief in property case

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Thursday granted relief to the businessmen sons of former Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal and upheld the legality of their purchase of a Sikandra Road property in the capital six years ago.
Valued at the time at roughly Rs 120 crore, 7 Sikandra Road in Lutyens’ Delhi was purchased by Chetan and Nitin Sabharwal and their business partner, Kabul Chawla, in 2010 after an auction process that had generated controversy.
A division bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma finally put an end to litigation surrounding the property and dismissed a challenge by a company, which was the second highest bidder at the September 2006 auction but was denied a shot at the property by Triveni Infrastructure, the original winner. Interestingly, the duration of the appeal saw at least four HC benches recuse from the hearing.
The Sabharwal brothers and Chawla, who owns real estate company BPTP, had not participated in the auction and a two-judge bench had declared Triveni Infrastructure as the highest bidder. At that time, Triveni was required to pay 25% of its bid amount—Rs 117 crore—within a week and the balance within three weeks thereafter, subject to the condition of the property being converted from leasehold to freehold.
Even as Triveni defaulted, Sabharwals and Chawla stepped in and offered to complete the purchase on its behalf, a plea allowed by a single bench of HC in 2010. During this time, Triveni was given repeated extensions of time to pay the balance amount by the court.
It was against this order that Prime Commercial Ltd, the second highest bidder, had appealed before a division bench, arguing that allowing Sabharwal and Chawla to take over the bid from Triveni violated the auction conditions set by HC in 2006. The company further pointed out that as per the original auction terms, in case of default by Triveni, the second highest bidder was to be permitted to buy the property.
However, the division bench disagreed and held that Prime “is truly a third party with no interest in the auction...” It also pointed out that the auction was conducted with the consent of all the owners of the private property.