Chennai: The Madras high court has appointed Justice D.Hariparanthaman, a retired judge of the high court, as the administrator of the trust to manage the properties of former Chief Minister and founder of AIADMK party and popular film star of yesteryear, late M.G.Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR. Justice M.M.Sundresh passed the order while dismissing the applications from MGR’s relatives - Latha Rajendran, M.C.Chandran and M.Swaminathan - who sought for substitution, appointment and impleadment as administrator to administer MGR’s properties.
The judge said a perusal of the will executed by MGR would show his clear intention. He claimed that the properties mentioned in the will exclusively belonged to him. He did not want a property dispute among his kin. Unfortunately, what he apprehended and wanted to avoid could not be done as a number of proceedings have been initiated by his relatives over the properties left by him.
It has been stated that he only nominated two persons as executors (Senior Counsel N.C.Raghavachari and Rajendran). The second one was to succeed the first one. Curiously, he did not name any other person thereafter. On the contrary, he left it to the discretion of the court to appoint an executor as per law, the judge added. The judge said the beneficiaries cannot as a matter of right ask themselves to be appointed as administrators of the properties. It appears all of them were residing within the portions allotted to them as a whole. There were serious allegations against Latha Rajendran. She was not even a beneficiary.
Merely because her husband was an executor, she cannot claim it as a matter of right. If that was the case, even the legal representatives of the deceased N.C.Raghavachari could make such a claim. The properties were of substantial value, the judge added. The judge said the intention of MGR was very clear. The properties were to be utilised for a philanthropic purpose mainly, among other things. There were also serious allegations that there was no Deaf and Dumb Home, but only an aided school having very few students. A further allegation was with respect to the construction of the building stated to be unauthorised, having been built and utilised against the wishes of MGR.
The court did not want to go into the allegations and counter allegations. The applicants were neither beneficiaries nor executors. Merely because the applicant’s husband was the executor or the other having been an erstwhile lessee of one of the properties or just being son of brother of MGR, no right was created for the appointment as an administrator, the court said. “After all, an administrator is required to see to it that the last wishes of MGR are complied with in letter and spirit. Even the beneficiaries do not have any right to administer”, the judge pointed out and appointed Justice Hariparanthaman as an administrator and asked him to file a comprehensive report within 8 weeks on inspection of all the properties and the accounts.
