Brothers To 'Fight All The Way' In Court Over Parents' Assets

Source : TODAY, Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A DEFAMATION case between the estranged sons of artificial limbs pioneer, the late Mr S Rajaratnam, may have simmered down but it has now brought to light a tale of sibling rivalry in which brother battles brother over their parents' assets.

Melbourne-based Kumar Rajaratnam (picture), 49 — a trained prosthetist like his father — contends that the assets as stipulated in their father's will were to be bequeathed to the grandchildren and various charities.

But he fears this will not materialise as his elder brother, 50-year-old Bala S Rajatnam, a physiotherapy lecturer with Nanyang Polytechnic, had allegedly got the ailing patriarch to change his will.

In yet another civil suit filed against Mr Bala, Mr Kumar said he wants to find "the whereabouts of the various bank accounts belonging to my late mother including sums of monies received by her as the surviving beneficial owner of my late father".

To bolster his suit, he claimed the Tribunal of Maintenance of Parents has begun an investigation into the resources of his late mother. However, a spokesperson from the tribunal declined to comment, as "they are unable to give information on individual cases due to legal restrictions".

The family quarrels began even before the death of the father in 2005. Two years earlier, in August 2003, Mr Kumar claimed through a court affidavit that their father — then in his 70s and suffering from dementia — had called him to say he was "signing documents he didn't understand that Bala was bringing to him".

But Mr Bala claims there is no truth in the allegations: Documents obtained by Today from Mr Bala showed that their parents had granted Mr Kumar the power of attorney in August 2003, which means only the younger brother could execute all matters relating to their parents' properties and bank accounts.

Said Mr Kumar: "I'm not a beneficiary of their will, neither is this a vendetta against my brother. I just want to do the right thing and donate whatever assets they have to the charities, as my parents originally wanted."

Repeated attempts at mediation have failed and the brothers have taken their grievances to court. They've decided to "fight the matter all the way now", said Mr Kumar's lawyer Manoj Nandwani. Both parties will attend a pre-trial conference tomorrow.

The escalating dispute came into the public spotlight when Today ran an exclusive report on Nov 23, detailing how an email row between them resulted in a lawsuit filed in July last year. Mr Kumar had then sued his brother for ostensibly defaming him to family members in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia via emails sent last April.

Mr Kumar, who challenged Mr Bala's guardianship of their mother after their father died two years ago, said: "At the time I started the (defamation) case, my mother was still alive and I needed family support in Singapore and Malaysia.

"Bala was sending out disparaging emails clearly to prevent any family support for me to care for my mother in the future."

But Mr Kumar has decided to drop the $300,000 libel case. "We found that there was limited circulation of the offending email," said Mr Nandwani.

With the recent death of their mother, Mrs Parameswari Rajaratnam, "the defamation suit is now academic", said Mr Kumar, director of several companies in Australia and inventor behind the "tatami chair" in the 1990s.

But Mr Bala plans to proceed with counterclaims for loss and damages amounting to more than $900,000 until he is given assurance "by some kind of mediation or written agreement that they not bring up further cases".

"I also want to be assured by the Court that, in future, if Kumar lodges more complaints, the Court will scrutinise them and suggest mediation immediately," he said.