Durban - Nearly four years after Minority Front leader Amichand Rajbansi’s death, his family are still at loggerheads over his assets, worth millions.
In the latest instalment in the lengthy legal drama, two Durban attorneys – who are also two of three appointed trustees of the A Rajbansi Family Trust – were on Thursday granted leave to intervene as defendants in an action brought by Rajbansi’s wife, Shameen Thakur Rajbansi.
Thakur Rajbansi had gone to court in 2013 in her capacity as executrix of Rajbansi’s estate, disputing a decision by the Master of the High Court, who had ruled that shares in four businesses belonged to the family trust and Rajbansi’s estate. She had argued that her late husband was the “beneficial owner” of those shares.
Rajbansi’s daughter, Vimlesh, had defended this legal action, as she holds shares in these businesses, and last year tried to transfer these shares to the family trust.
Thakur Rajbansi then sought an urgent interdict to stop her stepdaughter from doing so.
Vimlesh had said in court papers that she would hand over the shares to two of the trustees, Himal Tugh and Pravin Ramjathan, but not to her stepmother, the third trustee.
Thakur Rajbansi was granted an interim order restraining Vimlesh from transferring the money and shares to the trust and preventing Tugh and Ramjathan from receiving it.
The MF leader had said she believed Vimlesh and Tugh, Rajbansi’s long-time attorney, colluded with each other and that Tugh had used Ramjathan to “gang up” against her.
In opposing papers, Vimlesh had argued transferring the shares to the trust would save money as opposed to transferring it to the estate, as it would then be liable for estate duty.
She also apparently said excluding these shares from the estate would also lower the executor’s remuneration.
A trial date for the matter is yet to be set and on Thursday Tugh and Ramjathan said they had resorted to their application for leave to intervene as defendants in this application because of several failed meetings to try to resolve the matter.