Lalit Modi Family Dispute : Supreme Court Allows Another Round Of Mediation, Appoints Ex-Judge RV Raveendran As Mediator

The bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli also asked the parties to maintain confidentiality during the mediation proceedings and not use social media in relation to the matter.

The is the second round of mediation allowed in the matter after the failure of the previous mediation attempt. Earlier, the Court had appointed former Supreme Court judges Justices Vikramjit Sen and Kurian Joseph as mediators. 

The Court also recorded Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal's statement that the mother would not alienate any trust property pending disposal of the matter.

On December 16, 2021 the Top Court had appointed former Supreme Court judges, Justice Vikramjit Sen and Justice Kurian Joseph as mediator.

On Thursday, the court had asked parties to come up with a solution to solve the dispute and also asked them to file an application for seeking any interim relief.

In the hearing today, appearing for Lalit Modi, Senior Advocate Harish Salve submitted that as per the directions issued by the bench for filing an application seeking interim relief, an application was filed wherein relief for appointment of a trustee and for restricting the respondents from alienating trust properties was sought. Referring to clause 5.1 of the trust deed as per which the members of the trust had to meet at least once in 6 months for continuing the business, Salve said that no meeting has been held in last 2 years since Lalit and Samir Modi were on one side and the mother and daughter were on the other side.

"What is the need to sell large residential property pending the matter?" submitted Salve.

Senior Advocate AM Singhvi also appearing for the petitioner urged the bench to grant status quo with regards to the properties as the same were subject matter of downstream companies. He also submitted that Bina Modi was running the business on her own as the last meeting of the business was held in 2019.

Appearing for Bina Modi, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that he was ready to make a statement that no properties would be sold pending the disposal of the matter.

At this juncture, Senior Advocate Shyam Divan appearing for Samir Modi said, "I'm willing to exit but there has to be some manner in which it has to be settled."

"We were the ones who had sent you to mediation," the CJI said. The lawyers argued that their respective clients were willing for mediation but the settlement became impossible due to the lack of cooperation from the opposite side.

CJI at this juncture proposed another round of mediation.

"So many things are out of the area, we should not go into this issue. In the process of discussion and debate, several things will come up. Now again I'm proposing are you willing another round of mediation?", the CJI said.

On parties agreeing to resolve the dispute by mediation, the bench appointed Justice Raveendran as the mediator. Justice Raveendran was earlier appointed by the Supreme Court to head the committee constituted by it to probe the Pegasus spyware allegations.

The present special leave petition has been filed challenging the judgment of a division bench of the Delhi High Court, which held that the anti-arbitration injunction suit filed by late industrialist KK Modi's wife Bina Modi against her son Lalit Modi is maintainable.

The suit was filed by Lalit Modi's mother Bina Modi, his sister Charu and brother Samir seeking to restrain the arbitration proceedings initiated by Lalit Modi in Singapore over property disputes in the family.

In March 2020, a single bench of Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw had dismissed the suits filed by the as non-maintainable. But the division bench reversed that ruling.

Bina, Charu and Samir, in two separate suits, contended that there was a trust deed between the family members and the KK Modi family trust matters cannot be settled through arbitration in a foreign country as per Indian laws.

Case Title: Lalit Kumar Modi v. Bina Modi & Ors | SLP (Civil) 1134-1135/2021

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