Out client is a house wife and the only legal heir of her father. Father had another son. He too expired without any legal heirs.
Here father has invested in various shares. Some shares had no value, but some shares had lot of value. Value of these shares would really make difference to the life of the housewife in question.
Distribution of value of shares was lopsided and one particular share constituted 80% of her portfolio.
This particular company has made four bonus issues in fifteen years.
The lady has also applied for succession certificate and obtained one. Her brother was also party to the succession certificate, but he expired since, without any legal heir.
But, the succession certificate had a serious flaw. First bonus before 15 years was mentioned and third bonus before five years was mentioned. Second bonus before ten years was not mentioned.
She applied to the company and the company (In this case, there is no Registrar) asked her to include the bonus that is missed out in the original application.
They received the original succession certificate after five years and they were rightly vary of starting a new petition.
Time passed by. Our representative approached the lady. She readily asked us to do the job and explained the problem too. We took it up.
SOLUTION
We approached the company and represented the case. Initially, they were not forthcoming.
We got the client to sign a special affidavit setting out all the facts of the case and established the fact that it was an inadvertent typographic error, since they have listed two bonuses and there was no reason why they would not have included the other bonus issue which was missed out.
We got solemn affidavit from prominent neighbours that the brother who expired did not have legal heir.
Armed with all these, we went to the company and represented the case. We argued that apart from letter, spirit of the law should be looked into, which is to ensure passage of stocks to the right recipients. We also requested the company to have a field check in addition to documentary verification.
They must have verified through their distributor network. (We don’t know for sure). They had three different calls with the legal heir. (This, we knew for sure). In the end they agreed that, they would consider favourably and transmitted all shares in her name. A satisfying moment, indeed!
