MUMBAI, 2 September 2007 — The Jinnah House in Mumbai has become a bone of contention between several claimants to the property. The latest entrant in the claim game is a lawyer Firoz Ansari, who filed an intervention application in the Bombay High Court opposing the claim of Dina Wadia, daughter of Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

Dina who resides in America, has filed a writ petition in the high court in which she claimed to be the sole legal heir of her father’s bungalow situated in the Malabar Hill area, and referred to as Jinnah House.

“As the only heir of Jinnah, I am entitled to the property,” she had stated in her writ petition, filed in the court on July 31. Dina has termed the state government’s action illegal in declaring the house as an “evacuee property’ and alleged that it was wrong to state that Jinnah had willed his property to his sister Fatima, who was declared an evacuee after she migrated to Pakistan in 1947.

Ansari in his application said that Dina who holds a British passport, had renounced her Indian citizenship, and is thus not entitled to the claim over the property. He further stated that he was intervening in the matter in larger public interest, and urged that the house should be used as a cultural center, museum or to help improve ties between India and Pakistan.

Ansari further said that the house vests with the government of India and cites an order passed by the then chief secretary of Maharashtra in August 1949, setting aside the order of the custodian of evacuee property notifying that Jinnah’s bungalow belonged to Fatima Jinnah, his sister.

The erstwhile chief secretary’s order also rejected Fatima’s claim stating that though Jinnah had willed the property to his sister, no deed of transfer had been executed in her favor. Ansari requested the court to dismiss the petition filed by Dina.