New Delhi: The last wishes of the great Hindi writer Krishna Sobti, recorded in her will, have got mired in strange legal hassles. After Sobti’s death, her house, which should have become a national heritage site, has become entangled in legal traps and fallen into ruins.
Sobti wanted her residence to be converted into a Lekhak Awas or a writers’ residence, where creativity could be nourished. But the housing society of Sobti, to which she had entrusted this task, has refused to hand it over to the Raza Foundation.
The dispute over her will has become an issue of preservation of the legacy of literature and art. At present, this matter is in the Society Registrar Office of Delhi. The next hearing is on February 5.
Bharatiya Jnanpith awardee Krishna Sobti died at the age of 93 on January 25, 2019. Nearly three years prior to her death, that is, on August 16, 2016, she had prepared a will handing over her apartment – bearing the address B-505, Anandlok Housing Society, Mayur Vihar-1, Delhi – to the Raza Foundation.
The first page of Krishna Sobti’s will.
Sobti had stated in her will, “I hand over flat number B-505, garage and all the material therein, which are in my ownership, to Raza Foundation (Krishna Sobti-Shivnath Fund), which has the legal right to take over the charge of Krishna Sobti Shivnath Foundation. Raza Foundation has agreed that it will use these movable and immovable properties for the promotion of language and literature. In addition, flat number B-505, Purvasha Anandlok CGHS (Cooperative Group Housing Society) will be used by Raza Foundation as a residence for writers, which will be known as ‘Krishna-Shivnath Lekhak Awas’… I sincerely hope that CGHS will graciously grant this permission.”
Sahitya Akademi Award-winning writer Shivnath was Sobti’s husband. After Sobti’s death, Raza Foundation’s managing trustee Ashok Vajpayee wrote a letter to Anandlok CGHS on April 16, 2019, informing them about Sobti’s wish.
In a reply sent on May 23, Anandlok CGHS’s then secretary RK Mittal wrote, ‘…there is no provision in Cooperative Laws and DDA Lease Deed to grant membership to a Trust.’ The Society also informed that the will prepared by Krishna Sobti has not been ‘probated’ yet.
Anandlok’s reply.
Probate is a certificate issued by the court, after which the person in possession of the will can use the property as per their wish.
Explaining the subject, Supreme Court lawyer Mayank Yadav told The Wire Hindi, ‘If you do not get probate done, it does not mean that your will is illegal. But getting probate done certifies the validity of the will. These two things are different and should not be seen together.’
Despite not getting a positive response from the Society, Raza Foundation continued to maintain this house and pay other charges of the Society regularly. However, since the foundation does not possess the documents of the house, it could not pay the property tax.
In this regard, Ashok Vajpayee wrote a letter to the Society’s treasurer N. Veeraraghavan on August 30, 2023, ‘…we do not have all the original legal documents. One of them is the original property documents which we were not able to locate in her papers. In the absence of this document, we have not been able to pay the property tax. The Society’s office must be having this document. We would be grateful if a copy is made available to us so that we could pay the property tax. If any fee is to be paid for it, please let us know.’
According to the foundation, they have not received the said document yet.
Raza Foundation’s letter of August 2023.
The house forcibly vacated
The house was looked after by Sobti’s assistant Vimlesh alias Neetu Mishra. She had been residing with Sobti for 18 years. After Sobti’s death, she continued living at the house. But on December 31, 2023, the Society’s president Anita Babu issued a letter to Raza Foundation asking Vimlesh to vacate the house immediately.
On January 6, 2024, the Society also wrote a letter to Vimlesh which stated, “According to the law, you live here without authorisation. This house belongs to the members of the Society, no one other than whom can live in it. You are informed that you should vacate this flat within a week. Otherwise the Society will have to take action against you.’
Vimlesh Mishra. Photo: Ankit Raj/The Wire Hindi.
In April 2024, Vimlesh was forced to leave the house. Vimlesh told The Wire Hindi that she received the notice because the Society’s directors did not want to let a ‘low-class person’ reside there. “The Society (members) misbehaved with me because I am poor. They do not want a poor person to stay in their ‘high society’.”
Vimlesh said that an elderly couple used to live in the flat above B-505, and a caretaker Lakshmi used to look after them. After both of them died, Lakshmi continued living there and took care of the house. The children of the couple wanted Lakshmi to stay there, but the Society forced her to leave as well.
Ever since Vimlesh vacated the house, Sobti’s flat has been locked and the cherished residence of a great scholar is gathering dust.
Krishna Sobti in the study of her house. File photo: Meenakshi Tiwari
Why the controversy over the will?
Before preparing the will, Sobti had written a letter to the Society on July 15, 2016 informing them that she wanted to hand over her flat to the Raza Foundation to house two or three writers at a time, along with a caretaker, for short periods at a time.
A month after this letter, that is, in August 2016, she wrote her will. She had been keeping ill in those days. On September 2, 2016, the Society wrote to her saying that her proposal had been ‘considered carefully’ by the management committee. “While the object is laudable, it is regretted that the proposed use of the flat, which is purely and solely residential, is not permitted under the Society’s bye-laws and DCS (Delhi Cooperative Societies) Act/Rules,” read the letter.
Note that the Society did not have any objection to giving the flat to the Raza Foundation at the time, but it objected to what it would be used for.
When Sobti felt that the Society might not allow this house to be used as a writer’s residence, she expressed another wish.
On June 8, 2017, she wrote another letter to the Society requesting to convert her house into a library after her death. She wanted the library to be run by a committee. By then, she had turned 92.
But the Society rejected the wish of this elderly litterateur with a reply on June 16 saying, “As per the Perpetual Lease of land of DDA, the flats of the Society can be used only for private dwelling of its members. This is also the position as per the Bye-laws of the Society.
Society’s reply rejecting both demands of Krishna Sobti.
Is there another way?
Perhaps Sobti had sensed that the Society would not allow her wish to be fulfilled. Therefore, she added a provision in her will dated August 16, 2016 that if the Society does not allow the flat to be converted into a writer’s residence, then the Raza Foundation can sell the flat after taking it under its jurisdiction and use the money received from the sale to buy property at another place and operate it as a Lekhak Awas.
It is worth mentioning here that in 2014, Sobti donated Rs 1 crore to the Raza Foundation for the promotion of language and literature. In 2018, she donated Rs 11 lakh of the Gyanpeeth Award to the Foundation. Raza Foundation has created Krishna Sobti-Shivnath Fund, under which a conference of young Hindi writers ‘Yuva’ has been organised every year since 2016. Sobti has also left the responsibility of running the Sobti-Shivnath Foundation to the Raza Foundation.
Krishna Sobti with various writers, guests at her house in Anandlok. Photo: Special Arrangement
She wrote in her will, ‘I am 92 years old and am unable to run the Krishna Sobti-Shivnath Foundation. I think it appropriate that an active organisation, the Raza Foundation, take over. It will be my sole legal heir.’
But the Society denies the clear aspiration expressed in these words.
When the Society remained adamant on its stance, the Raza Foundation placed some proposals before the Society’s president Anita Babu and Anandlok CGHS on December 27, 2023:
- The Raza Foundation Trust should pass a resolution giving the right to any of its trustees to get the flat transferred in his name, with the clear condition that:
- As soon as the flat is transferred to the trustee, it will be put up for sale. This process will be done in collaboration with Anandalok Society, and a proper sale agreement will be executed under the supervision of the Society.
- Once the deal is finalised, the temporary owner will transfer the ownership on behalf of the Raza Foundation to the new buyer, who will be deemed to be the new owner with the approval of the Society.
The foundation wrote, “It cannot be the objective of the Society to refuse ownership to the institution to which the flat has been handed over through a valid will. Moreover, the flat must be in someone’s name. We are confident that the Society will be willing to resolve the matter and respect the wishes of the great author, who was an esteemed resident of the Society for so many years.’
In a reply sent on December 31, 2023, Anandlok Society President Anita Babu once again rejected the proposal citing the rules of the Society and the laws of DCS.
According to the Raza Foundation, ever since Vimlesh vacated the flat, the Society has been in possession of the keys of the apartment.
Caption: Locked door of Krishna Sobti’s house (left) Front corridor (right). Photo: Special arrangement.
Complications introduced by the Society
The Wire Hindi contacted the members of Anandlok CGHS but president Babu refused to comment, while secretary Anil Kumar Jain asked to contact Sarman Rawat, the lawyer appointed for the case.
Rawat said that the owner of this flat was Shivnath. The Society has a will regarding that flat, which was made by Shivnath. Shivnath wrote in his will that after his death the property will be transferred to Krishna Sobti, and after Sobti, to the Krishna Sobti-Shivnath Foundation.
Questioning Sobti’s will, Rawat said, “The court will decide whether the will made by Krishna Sobti after the will made by Shivnath is valid or not.”
“Whichever foundation claims this property will have to go to the court and get the will probated,” he added.
On the question of probating the will, Raza Foundation said that there is no need to probate a will registered in Delhi. Krishna Sobti’s will was made in front of the registrar in the registrar’s office.
Responding to whether probate is necessary in this case or not, Supreme Court lawyer Mayank Yadav said, “Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act talks about issues related to probation. If someone wants to establish his legal right on the will, then he will need to get the will probated in the court.”
But Yadav clarified that the question of probate is also related to which state the property belongs to and which state the owner of the property belongs to.
‘In Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai, it is mandatory to get the will probated. In Delhi, it is not mandatory. Since in this case the property is in Delhi and the residents are also from Delhi, probate is not necessary,’ he said.
Yadav added that even if the will has not been probated, the Society has no right to stop the will holder from using the property. “The Society has nothing to do with it, it cannot stop it,” he said.
However, the Society has added another twist. It refused to give ownership to Raza Foundation, claiming, “There is no provision for giving membership to a trust under cooperative laws and DDA lease deed.”
Yadav called this a baseless claim. He said, “A foundation can not only become a member of a housing society but can also become the owner of the property within a Society.”
At present, the case is before the Society Registrar Office. According to the Raza Foundation, they “made their first appeal in the Society Registrar Office, but after no hearing for two years, they approached the high court. The high court has again directed us to the Society Registrar Office. The hearing is on February 5.”
However, amidst all this, the historic house where esteemed writers from across the country once gathered in Sobti’s company is getting dilapidated due to ongoing legal complications.
Translated from Hindi by Naushin Rehman. Read the Hindi original here.
