After a 15-year legal battle, a Borivali resident has got her flat, purchased with her hard-earned money, back from her husband’s lover.
A city civil court has ruled that the lover has no right over the property.
Shirley Felcida, 59, had filed a suit before the city civil court on April 17, 2009, against Julie D’Silva asking her to vacate her [Felcida’s] flat.
Felcida said that she married one Jerald Dennis Sumitra on December 19, 1971, and the two had a daughter named Sharon. She said Sumitra was an alcoholic who could not hold down a job. In 1979, Felcida got a job in Dubai and the family moved there. Sumitra, who was unemployed, returned to India in December 1994.
Felcida [the plaintiff] purchased a flat on December 28, 1986, for Rs1.43 lakh. Since she was in Dubai, her sister Doris Francis acted as her constituted attorney. From February 1992 to February 1999, the flat was given on leave-and-licence basis to various parties. Then the suit flat was locked.
Felcida claimed that in 2008, she came to know that Sumitra was in a relationship with Julie D’Silva, who was also married. She claimed that D’Silva would often come and stay overnight with Sumitra in the suit flat, and started posing as his legally wedded wife.
The two also intended to dispose of the flat, she said. Therefore, Felcida wrote a letter to the society saying Sumitra and the defendant should not be allowed to alienate the suit flat without her consent. A few months later, in October 2008, Sumitra died of a heart attack. Felcida claimed that, on the very same day, D’Silva took possession of the flat.
It was alleged that D’Silva had got Sumitra’s will, wherein he bequeathed the flat to her.
A nomination form was also prepared showing D’Silva as his wife. Felcida got all the documents and sent a legal notice to D’Silva to vacate the flat. However, D’Silva refused to do so. Despite several opportunities, D’Silva failed to submit her response to the suit.
Felcida had proved that she had the right over the said property, the court said.
“When deceased Dennis was not having any lawful right, title or interest in the suit flat, he was not legally authorised to issue nomination forms to the society in respect of the suit flat as well as he was also not legally authorised to execute the will in respect of said suit flat in favour of defendant. Apart from that defendant did not come forward to prove the so-called will in her favour and there is also nothing on record to show that the said will was probated,” the court added.
