The Bombay High Court has declared Sunday, 29th MAY, 2022, as the date of elections for ALL SEVEN SEATS of the Trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet. The verdict was delivered by the Divisional Bench of the Bombay High Court on 1st March, 2022.
As community members will recall, in March 2021, the elections for two vacant seats on the BPP Board (after the passing of Late Trustees, Zarir Bhathena and Yazdi Desai), were abruptly cancelled, just a few days before elections were to be held.
The community is well aware of the raging discussions that took place in the press, which made it crystal clear and obvious that the three majority trustees were working in, what came across as, a mindless fashion to external dictums – rather than applying their own judgment as regards issues discussed in the Board.
Since March 2021, the three majority trustees – Chairperson Armaity Tirandaz, Viraf Mehta and Xerxes Dastur – have been literally pulling out all the ‘stops’, to prevent the elections from taking place, for one reason or the other – be it covid or the monsoons, etc.
The first volte face by the majority Trustees took place on 9th March, when just two hours post the BPP meeting – which comprised a mock-drill with prospective candidates as regard the election process and details – out of the blue, Viraf Mehta proposed the elections be postponed, with Tirandaz and Dastur sheepishly nodding their heads in agreement.
From March 2021, for the next seven months, the so-called majority trustees, found one reason or another, to not announce elections for the two seats, despite the BPP lawyers advising the Trustees that they could be held in contempt for not doing so.
The culmination of this deliberate stalling took place on 12th October, 2021, at a BPP Board Meeting, where Viraf Mehta moved a Resolution to permanently postpone the elections i.e. not hold any elections till October 2022, which marked the end of the seven-year term!
When Trustees Noshir Dadrawala and Kersi Randeria vehemently opposed this Resolution, it came down to being a 2:2 tie, which is when Chairperson Armaity Tirandaz supported the Resolution by exercising her casting vote, thus passing the Resolution via a 3:2 vote in favour of postponing elections.
How preposterous that that just 2 trustees, in their rather questionable wisdom, and in total abuse of their power, pushed through this resolution, without a care in the world for neither accountability as Trustees, nor the law or even the community!
On getting to know of this blatant and horrendous abuse of power, community members came in large numbers to the BPP to meet and request the Trustees into not going through with this postponement-farce, and to immediately hold the much-pending elections.
Armaity Tirandaz, then reiterated her famous line, which has now become a popular ‘pun’chline in the Parsi community – “Let me ponder,” asking for a week for further discussions.
The next week, however, turned into a political fight with Dinshaw Mehta organizing his own band of people to create chaos and confusion in the Boardroom.
In complete disgust, Trustee Noshir Dadrawala threatened to resign, preferring to walk away rather than be part of this ludicrous Board. Later in the evening, during a one-on-one discussion with Kersi Randeria, Dadrawala expressed his desire to do something bigger and more radical to get the community’s attention to focus on the issue as also to get through to the three trustees. He proposed a Hunger Strike, as the perfect means of a non-violent but solid democratic protest.
He told Kersi that he was willing to give up the one thing that he loved the most, and that was food! The next day, the two Trustees spoke once again and having slept on the proposal, realised that a Hunger Fast could be a way to achieve what they wanted to do. And the idea germinated into action.
The immediate response that this rather novel idea garnered from their close friends and colleagues was extremely encouraging – with everyone resonating with the idea and extremely enthusiastic to even participate and take this drastic protest to a higher level and contribute towards its success.
For the first time in the history of the Parsi community and the BPP, a three-day long Hunger Fast was fronted by Trustee Noshir Dadrawala, alongside Trustee Kersi Randeria and other supporters, to fight for the cause of the community in trying to get the three other trustees to stop abusing their power of majority and agree to hold the elections.
What is not widely known is that, in addition to Trustees Dadrawala and Randeria, nearly six other other community members held a day-long hunger strike, in support of this movement.
Dadrawala and Randeria slept on the floor in the Boardroom, refusing to go home, lest their bona fides come under doubt.
Outside the Boardroom, a unique struggle commenced, with dozens of community members turning up every hour to sign the muster. Over 350 people came in person to the BPP over these two and a half days, calling for the elections to be held immediately.
Arzan Ghadiali, then launched an online petition, making the same demand which received an overwhelming response, with over 6,000 Parsis signing the petition.
Seeing the momentum being gathered by the Hunger Strike, as a result, the majority trustees realized that their decision to postpone elections had misfired, and they went on to sign the Consent Terms, under the aegis of Burjis Desai, on 20th October, 2021.
Viraf Mehta, seeing that the situation had partially defused, tried to go back on his word, and the Consent Terms were reiterated and once again signed by the Trustees, on 10th November, 2021.
It was sad to note how Trustee Viraf Mehta reneged on the consent terms – playing every trick in the book to stall the elections.
He even insisted that Trustee Kersi Randeria apologize to J Sagar – a law firm, which started appearing on behalf of the BPP Trustees, without any resolution passed by the Board authorizing them to do so… Where a typical ‘gher-nu-ghambaar’-like situation started unfolding, with none other than Hormuz Mehta, brother of Trustee Viraf Mehta, representing Viraf Mehta – an act that is frowned upon by the Bar Council.
Despite seeing through Viraf’s absurd charade in trying yet again to postpone the elections further, Kersi Randeria immediately complied with Viraf Mehta’s insistence upon a public apology to be placed in Parsi Times, as regards an article which had reported the absolute truth (‘BPP Trustee Viraf Dinshaw Mehta Wriggles Out Of Signing Consent Terms In The High Court’ dated October 30, 2021) about the events ongoing at the BPP.
The final straw which broke the proverbial camels’ back was Viraf Mehta scribbling on the Final Consent Terms and recording a condition that the Election Scheme be amended first. Since a conditional consent cannot be accepted, the Chambers Judge was unwilling to take it on record and the matter then came before the Division Bench of the Hon’ble Bombay High Court.
Under the erudite jurisprudence of Hon’ble Justice S J Kathawalla and Justice Milind N Jadhav, the Divisional Bench hereafter followed the due process of law of amending the Scheme of Elections, wherein significant contributions were made by Darius Khambatta and Burjis Desai.
Every line, every word of the scheme was discussed by the Trustees and the Hon’ble court and the final scheme, after additions, deletions, modifications, were put up before the Hobble high court, with the collective consent of all the Trustees.
Thereafter, as per the original order of the Divisional Bench, it was declared that the BPP elections for all 7 Trustee seats would be held on Sunday, 29th May, 2022… but not before a lot of drama unfurled, not just during the discussions on the amendments of the Election scheme, but also during the final two physical hearings in the High Court, due to the abominable behaviour and shameful antics of Dinshaw Mehta, which have mortified and gravely embarrassed the entire community.
Parsiana magazine, which was present throughout the hearings, has reported via its Facebook Page (as on 1st March, 2022), “The date for the election of seven Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship seats has been set for Sunday, May 29, 2022. High drama preceded the decision today afternoon with former BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta telling Bombay High Court Justice Sharukh Kathawalla to use his judicial powers “judiciously,” and Kathawalla responding with a “Shut up. Who are you…” Farhanaz (Farah) Irani, an expected trusteeship candidate, then asked to speak for two minutes. Kathawalla refused her request but when she again repeated the request, an annoyed Kathawalla ordered all the parties, including the BPP five trustees, out of the Court, leaving only the lawyers behind.”
What an outrageous embarrassment to the entire community, where Justice Kathawalla was repeatedly forced to chastise Dinshaw Mehta to not exceed his legal boundaries. In fact, in a pathetic display of brazen irreverence, Dinshaw Mehta kept trying to address the court, despite Katahwalla telling him repeatedly that he could no longer speak now, as it was now between the Trustees and the court.
Adding further insult to injury, Farah Irani, another alleged Dinshaw Mehta camp crony, unwarrantedly and repeatedly kept asking Justice Kathawalla to be allowed to speak for two minutes, despite knowing that the judge had already adequately warned Dinshaw Mehta that he would have him thrown out of the courtroom, if he didn’t keep quiet.
Aggravating Justice Kathatwalla even further, Dinshaw Mehta’s brazen and unacceptable retort continued to interrupt the court, claiming he be allowed to speak as he was one of the interveners. A visibly upset Justice Kathawalla then called for a cop as well as a lady cop, and ordered that the courtroom to be cleared, except for lawyers.
To the embarrassment of the entire Parsi community, about 20-30 Parsis present, including all the five trustees, had to leave the courtroom. All this happened in the presence of nearly 30-40 lawyers and advocates who witnessed this utterly humiliating scenario, where Parsis were actually asked to physically leave the court, only due to the outrageous and despicable antics of one ex-Chairman, who appears to have lost all sense of balance, responsible behaviour and lack of respect for judicial authority.
That this happened in the presence of his two sons – one a sitting BPP trustee (Viraf) and the other a practicing advocate (Hormaz) – who stood by as their father unleashed his unacceptable shenanigans, is a further blotch on the reputation of the Parsi community.
In fact, even as the order was being finally announced, the Mehta camp was seem desperately trying to postpone the announcement in the Parsi media. This is because after the announcement, they wouldn’t have been allowed to take any policy decisions and this would greatly hinder their nefarious designs, to give out political sops just before the elections.
Justice Kathawalla, in fact, even commented that throughout the hearing he was constrained to point out on more than one occasion, that he got the feeling that the majority trustees were bent on postponing elections, one way or another, and that he saw this as a final attempt to do the same… especially upon seeing, that when the court had initially proposed 15th May as the date for elections, the Mehta camp tried to push the elections to June, claiming that the month of May was vacation time!
However, the others present rejected this idea, reason being that holding the elections in June, which marked the onset of the monsoons, would not only add to the election costs (for setting up waterproof shamianas) but would also greatly inconvenience the voters. Hence this plea was also dismissed by Justice Kathawalla, who then said that the last date he was willing to consider was the 29th of May, 2022.
And so finally, the date of elections has been fixed for the 29th of May, 2022. The High Court is scheduled to soon pass an order which will officially announce the date of the elections as well as when the Notice for Elections should be published in the Parsi media.
