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Yet again the BPP has got the social media platforms buzzing and made it into the national dailies, for all the wrong reasons – at the cost of its own disparagement, and worse, at the sinful cost of reinforcing, instead of repairing the already tarnished image of our Community, thanks to the constant infighting going public. This past week, things took a turn for the worse, with accusatory emails being shot to-and-fro between BPP Trustee Noshir Dadrawala and BPP Chairman Yazdi Desai. And ending up in other Trustees having to join the fray.

Even as the current BPP Board is seen as the ‘Action Board’, which has been making things happen, these recurrent episodes of infighting, and worse, putting out these episodes on public platforms like social media and mainline national newspapers, seem to undo the good work done by the Board and has community members losing both, respect and faith, in what was once hailed as the highest institution of honour, integrity, leadership and vision in our Community. In keeping with numerous readers writing in their confusions about the ongoings, Parsi Times takes on the onus, yet again, to put the truth out there, and ask the BPP – What’s Going On?

How It All Started…

In keeping with a few ongoing irregularities within the BPP Board, which were unacceptable to some, Trustee Noshir Dadrawala decided to voice his disapproval in what started off as a mail to Chairman Yazdi Desai, which was shared on public platforms (social media and mainline media) to keep community members aware of what was happening as they had a right to know, and how Trustees were upset with Chairman Desai over numerous issues, but he listed a few crucial ones. This act by Trustee Dadrawala raises two main concerns in the minds of Community members:

1. Would it have been more prudent to sort out the disagreements between Trustees, within the Board as opposed to going public with it – because the truth remains, even amidst the infighting, we do have a Board with strong-minded and action-oriented Trustees. Did the act of going public undermine the entire Board, and worse, further hamper the image of the Community which is already reeling due to such regular episodes covered in the national media?
2. All the points raised in the e-mail shared by Noshir Dadrawala were in fact, investigated, uncovered and voiced in the boardroom by Trustee Kersi Randeria. When Randeria came to know of this email, he wrote back to Dadrawala pointing out the same, to which Dadrawala instantly agreed that it was in fact Randeria who had done all the hard work on the issues that he had mentioned in the mail to Desai.

But, since those emails didn’t make it to the public fora, and before things get lost in translation and are misinterpreted, and in the spirit of avoiding any misperceptions and presenting the truth, as is, the following is a summarized version, with excerpts, of what went down… starting with Noshir Dadrawala’s email to Yazdi Desai which pointed out the following indiscretions investigated and uncovered in the boardroom by Trustee Kersi Randeria:

Issue Raised: “Mr. Yazdi Desai has gone ahead and registered the leave and license agreement with just his name and signature in the case of allotment of a 2-room kitchen flat at Cusrow Baug to the Secretary of Ness Wadia.”

Chairman Yazdi Desai seems to have created history by allotting a flat to a beneficiary who happened to be the secretary of Ness Wadia, under a signature of just one Trustee – himself – thus flagrantly bypassing his colleague Trustees and violating the requisite legal permissions as laid down. Desai claimed to have this authority as per the Consent Terms signed between the Trustees, before Justice Kathawala.

However, Trustee Kersi Randeria had a completely different take on this issue. As per Randeria, Desai has failed to follow the consent terms and therefore raised questions about the legality of this document. While the consent terms do record that if trustees do not sign the agreement within 10 days of being intimated, then the Agreement can/may be registered with the signature of those trustees who have already signed the Agreement, this allotment has failed to meet the other mandatory condition of allotment, which requires the said proposed allotment be advertised in the newspapers, calling for any public objections. In what Noshir Dadrawala has accused Desai of trying to “please the ‘Super Trustee (Mr. Wadia)”, it remains that Desai has completely bypassed the mandatory condition of the consent terms, as a result of which the second condition can have no validity.

Trustee Randeria asserts that most of the Trustees were not approached for this signature as is normally done for other agreements. This was all the more striking because the mandatory notice calling for objections and the requisite period of awaiting objections was also completely bypassed! Therefore, this unnecessary haste, as per Randeria, certainly puts this agreement into a realm of Questionable Legality.

As per the facts unearthed by Randeria, even as Desai exhibited an unnecessary haste to register this document with one signature, it is astonishing to note that there were 48 other Agreements lying in Desai’s home, awaiting his signature. This apparently irked Randeria, who asked Desai in the Boardroom as to why these 48 poor Parsis seemed to bear no relevance with Desai, compared to the one agreement of Ness Waida’s secretary which became so important to register, even at the expense of bypassing the required conditions. “Do these 48 poor Parsis not deserve any consideration?” Randeria is supposed to have asked Desai in the Boardroom, adding that those 48 members of the community deserved more, if not as much consideration, as Ness Wadia’s secretary!

Dadrawala’s public questioning of the legality of this document is based on these very issues that were raised by Randeria inside the boardroom. Desai may have to consider going back to the Board and correcting this major legal lacuna by following the proper procedure laid down for registration of such documents in the concerned trusts.

 

Issue Raised: “Yazdi Desai going out of his way to please, placate and protect a non-Parsi trespasser by the name Sharda, who claims that she is occupying (which practically, in reality she is not) a huge flat at Khareghat colony. Sharda was a servant looking after an old Parsi lady… Mr. Desai wanting to offer this non-Parsi encroacher… an ownership 2BHK flat at Borivili worth about Rs. 1.50 Cr.”

One of the issues that the BPP Trustees seem to agree upon is the decreasing role of Chairman Desai as a team player, in keeping with the fact that he has taken some crucial decisions single-handedly, bypassing the nod from colleague Trustees. One such decision appears to not be in favour of the Trust and allegedly favours a non-Parsi domestic help who was looking after deceased tenants of a Trust flat, and is now an errant trespasser. Desai claimed he was settling the issue, as per the decision taken by the last board which was also dealing with this issue. Whereas two of the trustees of the last board, Munchi Cama and Dinshaw Mehta, had a different take on this issue, another then-trustee, Jimmy Mistry had supported the view by Desai. However, what stood out was that Desai negotiated and signed documents (an MOU and a Power of Attorney in favour of Sharda) of behalf of the Trust, when the current Board was neither informed of these documents, and therefore, nor had the Board authorised these.

In the case of Sharda, a few alarms seem to be going off… Sharda was the domestic help who apparently looked after an old lady (BPP tenant) who passed away. Apparently, when some distant relatives made claims upon the deceased’s two flats in Khareghat Colony, which were occupied by the sisters, the then Board of Trustees called upon Sharda to temporarily stay put in those flats, to prevent these distant relatives from intruding into these flats. However, the so-called ‘protector of the property’ Sharda, herself appears to have turned into an intruder! The most astonishing twist in the tale came when Sharda and her family – a few months ago – broke open the lock put by the BPP on one of the flats and took possession of the same.

However, prompt action by the BPP staff under the guidance of Trustee Randeria and Deputy CEO Shehnaz Khambatta, resulted in the Trust regaining and maintaining the possession of the flat, and preventing Sharda from intruding. This shameful and objectionable act of Sharda resulted in the present Trustees seeing her as an undesirable element, with whom they would prefer to not have any further talk or compromise. However, the Trustees were thwarted by the fact that Desai, without the knowledge or any authorisation of the Board, had signed an MOU as well as given the Power Of Attorney to this lady!

The BPP trustees are very keen to ensure that the likes of Sharda do not profit form the BPP whilst Chairman Desai is supposedly trying to follow the promises made by the last board and is keen to settle the Sharda case, to the extent that Desai even proposed to give her a flat in Borivili valued at Rs. 1.5 crores, as per current market estimates.

Once again, this was primarily investigated and opposed by Kersi Randeria and duly supported by all the other Trustees. Though any plan to give her the Borilivi flat has been shelved, Sharda still appears to be trying to dictate terms to the Trustees, allegedly with the support of Desai, which is not going down well with the other 6 Trustees.

Issue Raised: “In the name of sponsoring a BPP Staff Association Annual function he took control and unilaterally decided and instructed staff that only trustees whom he wants to invite are welcome. He tried to pass it off as a personal function, but, the documentary evidence at hand spoke a different story.”

In mid-2018, the BPP Staff Association had planned the Annual Staff party, which at that time had been forcibly cancelled on Desai’s insistence to not invite Ex-Chairman Dinshaw Mehta to the function. Subsequently, the postponed function was scheduled to be held on the 4^th of January, 2019. Desai is said to have convinced the staff association not to invite other Trustees, by personally putting in the money for catering and other related expenses. Two of the three staff association leaders, having been promised Rs. 50,000/- each by Desai, for their so-called performance, played along with Desai and kept the other Trustees in the dark.

Once again, it was Trustee Kersi Randeria who unearthed the facts of this unfortunate and unpalatable bypassing of the other Trustees. In the last Board meeting, this issue was discussed in detail and the Trustees decided to address a letter to the staff clarifying all the details and requesting them to use their discretion before attending the so-called ‘Annual Function’ financed by one Trustee, with a view to exclude the others! Sources inside BPP reveal that Desai appealed to Randeria to allow him to host the function stating that Randeria should understand the reasons why Desai had excluded the other trustees. In a final attempt to placate the other Trustees, Desai finally invited them for the said function, on the condition that Trustee Viraf Mehta should not bring along his father, Dinshaw Mehta. Randeria, apparently accepted Desai’s request as he understood Desai’s concern about Dinshaw Mehta’s attendance at the party and the possible unpleasantness that the situation could create as also the fact that this was the smallest and most irrelevant of the issues that were being discussed. This withdrawal of the opposition of the party by Randeria led to Noshir Dadrawala getting very upset and going public with his objections. (In later emails when this was discussed, Randeria wrote to Dadrawala wishing that Dadrawala should have simply asked Kersi for his reasons, and maybe the entire public episode could have been averted.)

Parsi Times is informed that even as Dadrawala went public with his objections and challenged his fellow Trustees to support his stand, Randeria mailed him a one-on-one communication where he pointed out to Dadrawala that all the issues raised by Dadrawala, were in fact investigated, uncovered and raised by Randeria in the Board meetings and therefore, Dadrawala’s going public with what appeared to be “his points” in the email to Desai and to various social media platforms and the national media were wrongful portrayals, and to worsen matters, challenging Randeria himself to support him! This has effectively led to the (unintentional) misconception to the public that the rest of the fellow Trustees seemed to be turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the issues being discussed, when the truth was that all 6 Trustees were voicing their disapproval and dissent.

In defence of Dadrawala, it must be mentioned that Dadrawala conceded, stating, “I say YES YOU ARE RIGHT – 100% CORRECT”, in an internal communication with Randeria, when the latter called upon Dadrawala to recognise this publicly. In addition, Dadrawala also has, in his internal correspondence with other trustees, admitted and recognised the primary role of Randeria, although these emails were not posted on the social media, like the earlier ones.

Inspite of Dadrawala suggesting that Randeria also go public with the email correspondences, Randeria has decided to not take to social media platforms and refuses to go public with national news dailies as he believe this “harms more than helps” the issues within the BPP and the image of our Community. He has emphasized his preference that the curtains be drawn on the unfortunate ongoings and looks to resolving the matters collectively with his all trustee colleagues, so that they can continue doing the good work for the Community and deliver on the promises made as its elected representatives and leaders.