Family Tragedy Unfolds in Kolkata Courtroom
A poignant family drama reached its tragic conclusion in Kolkata on Saturday when a nonagenarian businessman passed away at a city hospital while the Calcutta High Court was actively hearing his daughter's plea for visitation rights. The 90-plus-year-old man breathed his last even as judges deliberated on the emotional case that pitted family members against each other.
The Courtroom Battle for Last Goodbyes
The deceased businessman's daughter, who lives in Mumbai and happens to be the former sister-in-law of a prominent ex-India cricketer, had initiated the legal battle by approaching Justice Suvra Ghosh's court on Tuesday. She sought judicial intervention to visit her ailing father at the hospital, claiming she was being deliberately prevented from seeing him.
Justice Ghosh had granted her permission on the condition that her father raised no objections to the meeting. However, when the daughter visited the hospital on Friday, she was presented with a letter bearing her father's thumb impression that explicitly denied consent for the visitation.
This development prompted her to approach a Calcutta High Court division bench comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, questioning the authenticity of the document given her father's advanced age and deteriorating health condition.
Dramatic Courtroom Moment as Death News Arrives
The division bench convened on Saturday afternoon to hear the matter on an urgent basis, but proceedings took a dramatic turn when news of the businessman's death reached the courtroom. The bearer of the somber news was the businessman's aged wife, who informed the court of her husband's passing through a live video connection.
With the central subject of the litigation no longer alive, the division bench ruled that "the matter has become infructuous" and dismissed the appeal. The daughter then made a desperate plea for permission to at least attend her father's last rites, but the bench declined to intervene, noting that this request fell outside the scope of the original appeal.
Family Allegations and Counter-Claims
The mother's counsel, Srijib Chakraborty, confirmed that the ailing businessman had indeed refused to meet his daughter. The family leveled serious allegations against the Mumbai-based daughter, claiming she had neglected her father's care and had further disturbed their mental peace through social media posts.
Meanwhile, the daughter contested these claims in her plea to the division bench, arguing that there was no concrete evidence to prove the thumb impression on the denial letter actually belonged to her father. She expressed doubts about the document's authenticity, citing his age, health condition, and what she described as "the torture" he was enduring at the hands of her sister—the younger daughter.
The courtroom drama represents just one chapter in an ongoing family conflict, with the sisters engaged in another criminal case currently proceeding in a lower court. The businessman's death has now brought a tragic conclusion to this particular legal battle, leaving unresolved the deeper family tensions that precipitated it.
