Hiremath claims one-third of Baba Kalyani family’s assets, including shares in Bharat Forge

MUMBAI: There has been a new twist in the ongoing feud between Kalyani Group’s billionaire promoter Babasaheb Kalyani and his sister Sugandha Hiremath. In a recent court filing, Hiremath has claimed all assets of the Kalyani family, including shares in listed group companies such as Bharat Forge and Kalyani Steels, as well as personal assets such as land, real estate and jewellery. He claims ownership of one-third of the company.

The petition filed in Pune Civil Court on September 28, which is private and has been viewed by Mint, alleges that Mr Hiremath is responsible for Kalyani, who financed the creation of all the group’s businesses. He claimed to have recently come to know about the Hindu United Family (HUF). It still exists, including the group’s flagship Bharat Forge. Kalyani HUF has been in existence since the time of her grandfather Anappa Narayan Kalyani, she said in her petition.

Therefore, she claimed that all the assets of Kalyani Group today belong to this HUF and she claims one-third of it. The total market capitalization of the listed Kalyani group companies is over $500. INR70,000 billion.

Hiremath had sought to become a co-mediator with the Neelkanth Annappa Kalyani (NAK) HUF in a case he filed against his late father Neelkant Kalyani and brother Babasaheb in 2012. He claims that he did so because of a misunderstanding. Believe was the only HUF in the family.

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Separately, Hikaru, a company co-promoted by the Hiremath family, has also published a family agreement between Babasaheb and his father Neelkant Kalyani, which states that the Kalyani Group It is stated that the Hikaru shares held will be transferred to Hiremas.

Kalyani Investment, a listed company that holds 31.36% of Hikaru’s shares, disputes the veracity of the agreement.

In their filings, the companies cited a letter from the late Narayan Vaghulu, former chairman of ICICI Bank. Hikaru has submitted a letter from Vaguru to Sulochana Kalyani dated January 2012, which mentions the existence of an agreement between Kalyani’s relatives to transfer Hikaru’s shares to Sugandha Hiremath. .

However, Kalyani Investments produced a June 2023 letter from Mr. Vagur to his brothers, in which he said the 2012 letter was used to confirm the “correctness of the contents of the memo.” He said it was not a thing.

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“The deliberate suppression of this letter by Mr. and Mrs. Hiremas of Mr. “Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices in Securities Market, 2003,” Kalyani Investments said in a warning to stock exchanges.

Questions sent to Sugandha Hiremath and Babasaheb Kalyani did not receive responses by press time on Monday.

Tushar Kumar, a barrister at the Supreme Court of India, has made it clear that introducing regulatory oversight into already complex family disputes could lead to duplication of judgments and public exposure of sensitive family relationships. .

“From a strategic perspective, the disclosure of such family agreements can place moral or legal pressure on the parties to the conflict to comply with the terms of the agreement,” he said.

Amit A. Tangare, Managing Partner at Asahi Legal, said disclosure of family agreements to stock exchanges introduces an important dimension of market transparency into what was previously considered private family litigation. It added that regulatory disclosures could impact market valuations and investor confidence.

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“Inconsistencies between court filings and market disclosures can complicate both processes,” he said.

In March 2023, Sugandha and her husband Jaydev Hiremas filed a Bombay suit against Babasaheb Kalyani seeking specific implementation of the 1994 family agreement and transfer of Hikaru shares held by Kalyani Group to Sugandha. filed a lawsuit in the high court.

Currently, the Hiremath family owns about 34% of Hikal’s shares and is also a co-promoter of the company. Babasaheb controls another 34% of the company’s shares through two listed companies, Kalyani Investment Company and BF Investment.

Hiremas U-turn

Hiremath’s petition, filed in the Pune Civil Court in September last year, completely reverses her stand on the existence of Kalyani HUF. Earlier, in a written statement in a 2014 case filed by Sheetal Kalyani in the same court, she had claimed that NAK HUF was the only such organization among the Kalyani family.

Now, her petition claims that she was misled by her brother Babasaheb into believing that NAK HUF was the only HUF of the Kalyani family. She had been made to believe that the only asset of this HUF was a property in Yerawada, Pune, she claimed in her application.

However, in her September 28 petition, she said that after investigation, “the Kalyani family HUF has been in existence since the time when my grandfather Shri Anappa Narayan Kalyani himself held ancestral properties and funds. “I realized that there was,” he said. .

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Hiremasu further stated that it was only when Babasaheb tried to “usurp” Hikaru from her family that he “has no intention of looking out for anyone’s interests but his own” and that he “does not care about the rights of his siblings or his family.” He claimed to have realized that “he would do anything to take it away.” The sharing of family assets by family members. ”

Previous feud

The origins of the feud lie in a purported family agreement that Hikaru announced on Monday. As per the agreement, Babasaheb was to transfer Hikaru’s shares to Sugandha Hiremath. However, when Kalyani Group’s holding company tried to increase its stake in Hikaru in 2023, the Hiremas family saw it as an attempt to wrest control of the company from Hikaru and filed a lawsuit with the Bombay High Court. urged the appeal.

Since then, this rift has turned into a bitter feud involving a maze of lawsuits and counterclaims. The family of Gaurishankar Kalyani, brother of Babasaheb and Sugandha, has also filed a suit in the Pune Civil Court seeking fulfillment of the will of the late Sulochana Kirloskar, the three brothers’ mother, who passed away in 2023. .

Tangare called the consolidation of partition actions, cross-claims, and regulatory oversight a “complex matrix of legal procedures.” He said that although regulatory compliance may seem to add more complexity, Sebi’s disclosure requirements serve a distinct market-oriented purpose apart from adjudicating family property rights.

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The simultaneous disclosure of the family agreement by both Hikaru and Kalyani entities created a deliberate legal strategy on the part of Tangare, as it established a public record of competing claims that could prove valuable in future litigation. suggested.

Tangare also believed that bringing disputes into the regulatory realm could potentially stimulate settlement talks, as listed companies generally prefer to avoid long-term regulatory scrutiny.