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CAMP BIRLA: UNITY OR DIVERSITY?
JM
27 July 2004, Mumbai
Is it unity or diversity in Camp Birla? Or for that matter, is there one Camp Birla at all? Dancewithshadows.com takes a look.
It was BK Birla who asserted that the Birlas will fight the war of wills jointly. Did they?
A few days after Rajendra Lodha pulled out the Rs 5000-crore card, Yash Birla, the youngest scion in the Birla family staked his claim. Yash hired Iqbal Chagla to argue his case and filed a caveat in the Calcutta Court.
BK Birla, KK Birla and GP Birla moved the court with caveat pleas. Later, the two sisters of late MP Birla also moved court with their own caveats.
There were also reports that Yash Birla may take recourse to the ancient Hindu Mitakshara Law which, it is said, makes him a rightful claimant for the assets. The other Birlas are not associated with this.
Then the second family of Gajanan Birla comes into the picture as other potential claimants to the estate. This family has seldom been mentioned in the Birla tree, and are not part of the Birla mainstream.
Birla sources have been mentioned as saying that there is a will by the late MP Birla making his wife Priyamvada Birla only a limited owner of his assets. But this will has not surfaced so far.
The Birlas have netted a whole gallery of legal experts to advise them, boasting names like Fali Nariman and Ram Jethmalani. This too, doesn't look like a coherent, organised strategy to fight the battle.
May be this lack of organised legal planning is partly due to the lack of a Birla empire, as so correctly put by Ghanshyam Das Birla in an interview to Aroon Poorie in the latest issue of India Today. To a question from Mr Poorie, the Birla founder remarks that "all talk of a Birla empire is nonsense.It is not one group."
In terms of market capitalisation, the AV Birla group ranks third in India, the first two slots occupied by the Reliance group and the Tata Group. But the actual Birla family is spread far and wide, with a multitude of groups within, each with its own chiefs and their progeny. The seemingly disorganised way in which the legal battle unfolds could be an indicator to the lack of a well-coordinated approach. But whatever the case, Lodha will be taking his steps with utmost care. There are just too many powerful opponents in this high-stakes battle.
BY JM
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