Court: Both parties of the Tashi Group of Companies inheritance case had appealed to the Supreme Court against the High Court’s verdict issued on December 27.

The parties have submitted to the High Court within the 10 days of the verdict their decision to appeal.

A Supreme Court registry official said the files have reached their office yesterday.

The High Court in its verdict partially reversed the ruling of the trial court. It declared that the Final Inheritance Settlement Agreement (FISA) drawn between representative of the half brother Kazi Ugyen Dorji, Lhaden Pem Dorji and the two brothers, Tobgyal Dorji and Wangchuk Dorji, as legal.

While her legal counsel alleged that the two brothers took their share when their mother divorced the late Dasho Ugyen Dorji in 1983, the two brothers challenged her marriage to their father and the right to inheritance.

Both parties moved the court to declare the agreement null and void.

Lhaden Pem Dorji filed a legal suit on November 23, 2010 accusing the two brothers of misrepresenting and suppressing crucial facts and information while executing the FISA on May 6, 2007.

Her legal counsel Younten Dorji asked the court to give the whole of the estate of the late father to her son, reasoning that the two brothers suppressed the fact that they had received a 45 percent share of TCC as their final settlement when the late Dasho divorced their mother.

The parties fought the case for four years at the trial court. On November 2014, Thimphu district court in its verdict declared the FISA valid. The court had ordered the two brothers of the Tashi Group of Companies (TGC), Tobgyal Dorji and Wangchuk Dorji, to compensate Nu 1M to their half brother, Kazi Ugyen Dorji for using the trade name ‘Tashi’ and good will of TGC in their new business ventures without the consent of their half brother. This decision was upheld by the High Court.

The High Court however declared the FISA drawn in 2007 as invalid. It ruled that Kazi Ugyen Dorji was the sole beneficiary in the absence of a will that bequeaths their father, late Dasho Ugyen Dorji’s properties or his shares to anyone at the time his death.

The court said the two brothers had received 50 percent of the shares of the company along with their mother, which was 16.66 percent each.

In 1983 an agreement was drawn where their mother surrendered her shares for money and a plot of land in Nepal.

The High court established that the agreement had altered the final shareholding patterns of the late Dasho Ugyen Dorji from 50 to 55 percent, and that of the two brothers’ shares from 16.66 to 22.5 percent each which totals to 45 percent in the company.

Tshering Palden

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