The Bombay High Court directed the police to expedite probe into the complaint of alleged forgery, filed by former Kuwaiti Consul General Faisal Essa Al-Yousuf Al-Essa against city businessman Sanjay Punamiya.
Essa holds administrative powers of the Al-Sabah Court building, owned by the royal family of Kuwait, in south Mumbai. Essa has been locked in a dispute over Punamiya’s alleged illegal possession of one of the flats in the building.
A division bench of Justices N H Patil and Anuja Prabhudessai directed the senior police inspector of DCB, CID to expedite probe into the complaint filed by Essa against Punamiya and produce the investigation papers before the court on June 30.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Punamiya seeking to quash the complaint lodged against him.
Essa, who left for Kuwait in April 2013 following a kidney replacement surgery after spending three decades in India, had alleged that Punamiya forcibly occupied a flat in the Al-Sabah Court building in his absence.
Punamiya’s counsel, Ashok Mundargi, argued that Essa had handed over the flat’s tenancy to him (Punamiya) in September 2012 for a monthly rent of Rs. 50,000.
Additional public prosecutor K V Saste said that their probe is still on and they are waiting for the hand writing expert’s opinion about the signatures.
The Al-Sabah Court building was bought by the royal family in the early 1950s, while the neighbouring Al-Jaberia building is in possession of fellow royals, the Jabars of Kuwait.
Essa had administrative powers of both the buildings till 2010. He later requested the then king of Kuwait, His Highness Shaikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, to transfer Al-Jaberia’s administrative powers to another person while he would continue looking after Al-Sabah. After the king’s death in 2012, his heir renewed Essa’s administrative powers over Al-Sabah.
