Durban businessman Thoshan Panday’s dirty family laundry was aired in court on Wednesday when a man claiming to be his brother lodged an urgent application to be allowed back into a luxury uMhlanga flat.
Pranesh Panday was granted an interim order by the Durban High Court, with Judge Gregory Kruger ruling that he be allowed “unhindered access” to the flat in The Quartz that the applicant shares with his wife.
But Thoshan Panday, who owns the flat, denied in a later interview that Pranesh was his brother.
While the matter was adjourned to May to allow for him and his attorney, Feroza Aziz, to file responding papers, he told the Daily News that Pranesh was a relative.
“Oh yes, I’ll definitely be opposing the matter. You can’t expect to stay in the apartment for free. You must pay rent,” he said.
Aziz declined to comment, saying her rights were reserved and the matter was sub judice.
According to Pranesh Panday’s affidavit, he began living in the uMhlanga flat in July 2010 and continued to do so with his wife when they married in 2011.
He claims that he has paid the levies, water and electricity and for the upkeep of the unit.
“The first respondent (Thoshan Panday) is my brother and over the years I have been in his employ, which has also given rise to several disagreements,” he said in his affidavit. “(He) recently demanded that I vacate the unit, which I refused to do.”
Pranesh argued that if Thoshan contended he was entitled to eject him, he must do so in terms of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act.
He said that on Tuesday, Panday issued written instructions to the building security and manager to allow his attorney and a locksmith to enter to change the locks to the unit; to deny the couple access into the building; and to collect their access and parking discs for the unit.
Yesterday, Thoshan said it was not his attorney, but a staff member that accompanied the locksmith.
Pranesh said the building manager did not allow his locksmith in, so that they could regain access to the building and contended that his brother, the building security and the building manager had all acted unlawfully and without the authority of a court order to eject them.
The couple, both unemployed, said they had nowhere else to live and had spent the night with relatives in “cramped accommodations”.
Pranesh said he had used his savings on the urgent court application and as a consequence, had no money to rent alternative accommodation.
Thoshan Panday made newspaper headlines previously for his alleged corrupt relationship with KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni.
It was alleged that Ngobeni tried to stop a Hawks investigation into a R60 million SAPS accommodation tender fraud involving Panday.
The businessman and Captain Aswin Narainpershad were charged in 2011 with conspiracy to commit fraud and corruption, in trying to bribe another policeman to accept false invoices for World Cup accommodation.
The charges were provisionally withdrawn in 2013 because of problems with evidence.
And Colonel Navin Madhoe and Panday were accused in 2011 of trying to bribe Major-General Booysen, the Hawks head at the time, with R2m to quash investigations into the R60m accommodation scam. Those charges were withdrawn in April last year because of “irregularities”.
Daily News