Bombay High Court to examine Jaidev Thackeray on June 20

Late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s estranged son Jaidev on Monday came to the high court to depose as a witness. However, his testimony could not be recorded as his brother Uddhav’s lawyers said they were informed that Jaidev would not be available on Monday and hence they were not ready to cross-examine him. Following this the judge posted the matter for fixing date for examining Jaidev on June 20.

In the meantime, Justice Gautam Patel disposed of an application filed by Uddhav’s lawyer seeking to expunge some portion of witness’s statement, which was part of cross-examination.

Uddhav’s lawyer said that some part of witness’s statements are either “hearsay” and witness does not have first-hand knowledge about that fact

and hence it cannot be said what he said was true. Hence the statements should be expunged, he argued.

He further contended that some other portions were either irrelevant to this case or it travelled beyond the case and needed to be deleted from the statement.

When he read out certain portion which he was objecting to, the judge said that the plaintiff is required to ask these question to prove that he was aware about how the family was dealing with day-to-day affairs. Justice Patel also said that he (Jaidev) is entitled to prove his case the way he thinks is best and not according to respondent’s lawyers. Though the judge disposed of this application, he kept it open for Uddhav’s lawyers to argue on this topic at a later stage.

Jaidev’s lawyer also tried to submit nine additional documents to be relied upon during hearing of this matter but Uddhav’s lawyer objected to it claiming that the plaintiff was given time to provide whatever documents he wants to rely upon but at that stage these documents were not submitted. The judge also asked the reason for the delay in submitting the papers but Jaidev’s lawyer did not have a response for it.

After going through documents, the judge took only two documents on record.

The remaining seven documents included a copy of cheque of TDR. According to Jaidev’s lawyer, Matoshree was supposed to be divided into three portions but this cheque was not taken on record.