Observing that the monthly interim maintenance of Rs. 1.25 lakh awarded to the widow of post-production studio owner Yusuf Lakdawala by the magistrate’s court was on the “lower side”, taking into consideration her submissions that the family had properties worth Rs. 1,000-1,500 crore, a sessions court in Bombay on September 5 enchanced it to Rs. 2 lakh. Yusuf Lakdawala’s 45-year-old son, Firoz, and his wife will now have to pay the said Rs. 2 lakh and an additional Rs. 75,000 towards monthly house rent to their 46-year-old stepmother, Sabina. The money will have to be paid from October 2021.
The stepmother had filed a domestic violence complaint against Feroz and his wife. The sessions court, however, did not grant Sabina’s plea to live in the shared household.
Yusuf Lakdawala died on September 9 last year. He had been arrested months earlier in a money-laundering case. Both, Sabina and Feroz, moved the sessions court in March this year after the magistrate’s February 2022 order. While Sabina sought certain other reliefs refused by the magistrate, Feroz wanted the sessions court to set aside the magistrate’s order of February 2022. Earlier, Sabina sought before the magistrate’s court, Rs. 5 crore every month from Yusuf’s assets, right to reside in her matrimonial home, and a compensation of Rs. 10 crore for torture and distress suffered.
In its 13-page order dated September 5, the sessions court noted that it had perused the bulky record and compilations presented by the parties, running into about 2,500 pages. It also noted that Sabina and Yusuf Lakdawala were married in 2007.