Who owns the Parsi Lying-In Hospital (PLIH): The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) or the PLIH Trust? The fallout over the dispute has resulted in PLIH trustee and managing committee (MC) member Noshir Dadrawala submitting his resignation in end November/early December 2023 after nearly 15 years of association.
"Various efforts have been made to revive this Hospital which is defunct since the past three to three-and-a-half decades. However, efforts made have been thwarted from time to time by external forces within the community. This year I saw some hope after two rounds of discussion with the trustees of the BPP. We have furnished the BPP trustees with all data and information and answered all their queries but there seems to be no intention on the part of the BPP to move forward,” wrote Dadrawala, an erstwhile BPP trustee.
Noshir Dadrawala (l) and Dinshaw Mehta
Parsi Lying-In Hospital Photo: Jasmine D. Driver
"Just today I came to know that one trustee needs more time to read the papers given to him several months ago. Later today the father of this trustee has made it abundantly clear that even if the MC of the PLIH Trust and the BPP agree on joint ownership and work out an amicable solution for the community, he will go to court. He brazenly adds that a few more years’ delay will be of no consequence.
"Clearly I see no solution in sight and I do not wish to be a MC member of a defunct Hospital where I have nothing to manage beyond the indecisiveness of the BPP trustees and their external controller-in-chief Dinshaw Rusi Mehta…”
Former BPP chairman Mehta had scuttled an earlier proposal to lease the property for a state-of-the-art orthopedic hospital alleging due process was not followed. In an e-mail he wrote to Dadrawala that "PLIH belongs to the BPP since 1924 when the then trustees as well the MC of PLIH officially conveyed the property to BPP trustees with the approval of the then Bombay High Court as well as State government who transferred the lease for the balance term to the trustees of the BPP. In spite of that you are taking advantage of its (allegedly) false insertion in the Charity Commissioner’s records in 1950 when the Public Trusts Act was first enacted. Further, the property card of PLIH is in the name of the BPP trustees, the lease deed of the government to PLIH is in the name of the BPP trustees, the municipal property tax assessment bill of PLIH structure is in the name of the BPP trustees and yet the MC who were appointed in 1924 by BPP trustees to look after patients in the PLIH Hospital now illegally claim ownership…
"Instead... why don’t you obtain legal opinion from the High Court about its ownership by filing a joint chamber summons and both sides then honor the verdict? But you knowing the legal position don’t want to give up your false claim to property which legally belongs to BPP by now offering 50% ownership…
"Even if the trustees fall for your gambit of joint ownership, make no mistake I will file a summons in the High Court for illegally claiming community property and to decide its legal ownership once and for all. As it is PLIH has been non-functional since last almost 40 years hence a few more years will hardly matter.”
In all likelihood the Hospital will continue to remain defunct for many more years to come.