Widow's billions go to accountant

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC correspondent in Calcutta

The combined assets of the Birla groups are around $8.8bn

One of India's richest corporate empires, the Birla family, has united to challenge a huge bequest by one of its members to her accountant.

Priyamvada Birla, widow of a cousin of family patriarch BK Birla, left company assets worth about 50bn rupees ($1.1bn) to Rajendra Lodha.

BK Birla said there was "perfect harmony" in the family to challenge the bequest to a "complete outsider".

Mr Lodha, who opened the will on Monday, was not available for comment.

Priyamvada Birla's husband, Madhav Prasad Birla, died in 1990 and the couple had no children.

She ran the MP Birla group of companies after his death, until her own death last week at the age of 76.

'No pushover'

On Monday, Mr Lodha, a leading chartered accountant whose firm audits most of the Birla companies, opened the will in the presence of the astonished Birlas at their Calcutta home, called Birla Park.

Mr Lodha was named the inheritor of the entire assets and management control of MP Birla.

BK Birla said: "The family members have examined the will and the consensus is that we have the moral and legal right to challenge the validity of the will.

[Lodha] is a sharp financial adviser and accountant and has won many a court battle for the Birlas Tamal Majumder, business analyst

"We are confident that we will win the case."

There are seven distinct branches of the Birla tree, whose combined assets stand at around $8.8bn.

The Birlas have hired two Calcutta-based solicitor's firms, Khaitan & Co and NG Khaitan & Co, to draw up legal action.

Sources at Khaitan & Co say a legal notice is likely to be served in a day or two to stop Mr Lodha executing the will.

A lawyer at Khaitan & Co said it was "rather unusual" for Priyamvada Birla to have left her will with the intended beneficiary and not with her lawyers.

But corporate analysts in Calcutta say Mr Lodha is no pushover.

"He is a sharp financial adviser and accountant and has won many a court battle for the Birlas," said business analyst Tamal Majumder.

"He is one who knows the ins-and-outs of the Birla empire."

What is worrying the Birlas is that Mr Lodha, by inheriting MP Birla, will get a 25% stake in Pilani Investments.

Pilani has a shareholding in many of the Birla companies.

"If Lodha is not challenged, he will get to interfere all across the Birla empire, by virtue of his stake in Pilani," says Mr Majumder.