New Delhi: It’s now a routine affair for Mandhira Kapur to wake up to a string of desperate calls from her 80-year-old mother Rani. Six months after her brother Sunjay Kapur’s death, the calls from their mother carry the same relentless refrain: “Give me my house back. Get my company back. My husband built it.”
“My brother’s death has brought us to the streets. My parents worked for this empire. Today, an outsider came and walked off with it,” Mandhira told ThePrint over the phone from her apartment in the UK. The “outsider” she referred to was the late industrialist’s third wife, Priya Sachdeva Kapur.
The sudden death of 53-year-old Sunjay Kapur, while playing polo in London, has unleashed murder allegations, bitter accusations of greed, and a battle over control of Sona Comstar, the automotive firm built by his late father. His mother, his wife, and his children from his second marriage to actor Karisma Kapoor are now embroiled in a Shakespearean showdown.
Beyond the fraught private phone conversations, a bitter inheritance battle is unfolding in the Delhi High Court, where three generations of the Kapur family are fighting for the late industrialist’s estate, said to be worth Rs 30,000 crore. With a business dynasty, two Bollywood kids, and a former model-turned-entrepreneur in the fray, the public spat has laid bare the faultlines of an otherwise gilded world. It is Succession meets Kyunki Saas Bahu with a Page 3 twist. Each day brings a new headline. Even the Delhi High Court has urged the families to stop being so “melodramatic”.
They are trying to make Komolika of daily soaps out of [Priya]. But she is doing everything legally. She was his wife. She is grieving, processing his death amid such allegations
-a member of Priya Sachdeda Kapur’s team
This is not the first time a prominent Indian family has found itself in the courtroom. Jyotiraditya Scindia spent 27 years locked in a legal battle with his three aunts over a Rs 40,000 crore royal empire in Gwalior. The Ambanis and Lodhas have also had very public family feuds.
But beyond the vast sums of money involved, the Kapur dispute also has the razzle-dazzle of the showbiz and socialite world. Each faction is pulling out all stops to prove its proximity to Sunjay, who took over as chairman of Sona Comstar in 2019, four years after the death of his father. Analysing the motives of the family members has become a form of entertainment on discussion platforms like Reddit.
Inside the courtroom, colourful metaphors are being thrown to discredit the other parties.
Kapur’s children from his second wife, Karisma Kapoor, have accused Priya Sachdeva Kapur of being “greedy” and behaving like “Cinderella’s stepmother.” Karisma and Sunjay’s eldest daughter, Samaira, has alleged non-payment of university fees, and mother Rani Kapur has argued that if her son hadn’t intended to leave anything to her, “he would have at least mentioned her” in the will. Even international authorities have been dragged in. Rani alleged in a letter to British police that her son died not due to cardiac arrest but in a “transnational conspiracy”, hinting that it was orchestrated by his wife.
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Pieces of an empire
The courtroom drama began after Kapur’s children with actor Karisma Kapoor, Samaira and Kiaan, filed a lawsuit challenging their father’s will in September. But the feud itself boiled over almost immediately after his death on 12 June this year.
The trigger was Priya Sachdeva producing a will dated 21 March 2025 that bequeathed all his personal assets solely to her, excluding his mother and the children from his second marriage. Within weeks of Kapur’s death, Priya also took over as one of the non-executive directors of her husband’s billion-dollar Gurugram automotive company, Sona BLW Precision Forgings Ltd (Sona Comstar).
None of it has gone uncontested. Mahesh Jethmalani, the lawyer of Karisma’s children, has alleged that the will was forged and fabricated by Priya in an attempt to seek complete control of the estate—which her lawyer Rajeev Nayar has denied.
The dispute, though, is only escalating. On 1 December, Rani Kapur formally joined her grandchildren’s lawsuit, asserting that “the entire legacy” of the empire belonged, in fact, to her, and that neither Sunjay nor Priya had the authority to make decisions about it. The matriarch had already written to the Sona Comstar board in July, alleging that a time of mourning had been used to “wrest control and usurp the family legacy.”
Emotional and psychological factors frequently contribute to the escalation of what might initially appear to be a straightforward financial disagreement into a bitter and prolonged conflict
-inheritance lawyer Shaishavi Kadakia
One complication is that Sunjay held no Sona Comstar shares in his own name. His interest in the company was concentrated in the RK Family Trust, set up by his mother Rani, with him as its sole beneficiary. The trust’s stake — about 28 per cent — is held through the promoter entity M/s Aureus Investments Private Ltd (AIPL).
“The promoter entity M/s Aureus Investments Private Ltd was holding 28.02 percent shares of the company and continues to hold the same after the demise of Mr Kapur,” said a member of Sona Comstar’s communications team in a message.
Neither Rani Kapur, Karisma Kapoor, nor Mandhira Kapur hold Sona Comstar shares individually. The only family stake outside Aureus comes through the RK Family Trust, which owns 72 shares in Sona Comstar.
“The RK Family Trust owns 72 shares, which account for less than 0.01 percent stake in the listed entity,” said the representative.
The company has outrightly rejected the role of Rani Kapur in Sona Comstar. While she had two shares in the company until March 2017, this is no longer the case.
“Mrs Rani Kapur has had no role, direct or indirect, in Sona Comstar since at least 2019. She is neither a shareholder, director nor officer of the company,” the message added.
Outside the courtroom, a narrative war is on. Each faction has brought on PR teams, which attend court hearings, jot down pointers in favour of their client, and spread their own version of the story. Headlines have followed: “Bollywood-style drama over Sunjay Kapur’s will,” “Family feud over Rs 30,000-crore empire,” “Sunjay Kapur Pari ‘war’ explodes,” “Lawyers go berserk amid battle for Sunjay Kapur’s estate,” “Pati ki maut par dukh manane ki bajay property chhipane mein busy Priya, Sunjay Kapur ki maa ka arop” (Instead of mourning her husband’s death, Priya is busy hiding property, alleges Sunjay Kapoor’s mother).
Emotions are running at a fever pitch. When families are in a commercial dispute, the history and personal dynamics play as big a role as the money, and this feud is no different.
“Emotional and psychological factors frequently contribute to the escalation of what might initially appear to be a straightforward financial disagreement into a bitter and prolonged conflict,” said inheritance lawyer Shaishavi Kadakia.
‘White House’ in the storm
At the farmhouse-style bungalow in Delhi’s Rajokri, three guards peer out from a cramped security room. Every movement is noted. Wired landlines keep buzzing. CCTVs sweep across the property. It’s in this white fortress, hidden behind imposing iron gates, that Priya now lives with her son. The rest of Sunjay’s family isn’t welcome anymore.
Mandhira recalled how they used to call this place the “White House”.
“My father built it in the late ’80s. My mother spent a year with the architects to ensure everything was exactly as she wanted. There was even a tree where my mother would sit all day, guiding the architects. We used to call it ‘maa’s tree,’” she told ThePrint.
Now, like many aspects of the family’s life, the house is a battlefront between mother and wife. And this tale of rivalry has just gotten a lot more bitter. On 8 December, Rani Kapur told the court that Sunjay had removed Priya from the board of the holding company AIPL in March 2023 itself. She alleged that her son intended to reverse past choices.
A few days prior to this, Rani Kapur, through her lawyer Vaibhav Gaggar, also accused Priya of “massive concealment” of Sunjay’s assets, including the Rajokri farmhouse. Many numbers, often contradictory, are flying around.
“This house was built by my late husband. There are more than 50 pieces of artwork there… (Sunjay Kapur) had no life insurance, no rental income and mutual funds? Just his salary was Rs 60 crore, and we are saying that he has only Rs 1.7 crore in his accounts?” the court was sarcastically told on 1 December.
Meanwhile, Sona Comstar has said that the late industrialist’s compensation as the non-executive chairman of the company was Rs 2.4 crore per annum.
After Surinder Kapoor’s death, everything passed to Rani Kapur. Even their children — Sunjay and his two sisters — had signed no-objection papers. Now we are suddenly hearing that the trust belongs to Priya. All we are asking for are papers
-Vaibhav Gaggar, Rani Kapur’s lawyer
“It amounts to some Rs 20 lakh per month,” the company’s representative told ThePrint.
Rani’s lawyer, however, contested this in no uncertain terms.
“After Surinder Kapoor’s death, everything passed to Rani Kapur. Even their children — Sunjay and his two sisters — had signed no-objection papers. Now we are suddenly hearing that the trust belongs to Priya. All we are asking for are papers,” Gaggar told ThePrint.
Rani’s path to court came after her earlier attempts to seek recourse went nowhere. In August, she wrote to the UK government asking for an inquiry into her son’s death, calling it “foul play, including the possibility of murder, abetment, conspiracy, fraud and forgery.” Around the same time, the Surrey coroner confirmed that Sunjay’s death was caused by heart disease. Her previous letter to the Sona Comstar board urging them to hold off the AGM as she had been “coerced” to sign papers after Sunjay’s “highly suspicious” death also fell on deaf ears; a day after she sent it, Priya was appointed as non-executive director.
Finally, Rani joined her grandchildren, aged 20 and 15, in the Delhi High Court, where they are claiming a one-fifth share each of their father’s personal assets — which they say is worth Rs 30,000 crore. While Karisma Kapoor has remained conspicuously silent and is not a plaintiff, she’s been brought into the melee too, with Priya’s lawyer Rajiv Nayar casting aspersions: “Your husband and you left each other years ago… You were nowhere to be seen for the last 15 years.”
In his counter-offensives, Nayar has argued that the children were not empty-handed as they have been alleging, and that they have already received assets valued at over Rs 1,900 crore through the RK Trust.
“For all this crying and weeping that is going on, plaintiffs received Rs 1,900 crore from the trust,” he told the court, adding that it had been transferred to them “about five days before” the lawsuit was filed.
Old fractures in the family
At Rani Kapur’s Mumbai residence, conversations now revolve around Sunjay’s marriage to Priya Sachdeva. His sudden death, and Priya’s emergence as one of the primary beneficiaries of the billion-dollar estate, has opened a can of resentments.
Sunjay Kapur was the toast of party circles, an extrovert who would take no time to make new friends, recalled Mandhira. But after his marriage, he grew distant.
Mandhira now claims Priya broke up her brother’s marriage with Karisma. And that the late patriarch, Surinder Kapur, had opposed the new union.
“He never approved of Priya. He told Sunjay never to marry her or have children with her,” she said. “I didn’t attend the wedding out of respect for our father’s wishes. Now, we understand that he was right.”
Sunjay’s three marriages have all been tabloid fodder for different reasons. His first wife, fashion designer Nandita Mahtani, reportedly ended the marriage in 2000; they had no children, and she is not part of the dispute. Three years later, he married Karisma Kapoor; they separated in 2014 and got divorced two years later amid allegations of domestic violence and infidelity. He married Priya in a private ceremony in New York in 2017.
In an interview with a YouTube channel, Priya said that she met Sunjay when he was shuttling between Delhi and Mumbai for work. He was still married to Karisma back then.
Priya’s claim about maintaining a blended family and Karisma joining her for vacations and family dinners was all a public façade
-lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani in court
“I was just divorced. We met on a flight where we started chatting. We knew each other. I had a store in Mumbai. I was going to work. He was married and his wife and children were living in Mumbai at that time,” she said in the interview.
Talking about the children, Priya painted a picture of a harmonious blended family—Safira (her daughter from a previous marriage), Samaira and Kiaan (Sunjay’s children with Karisma), and her son Azarias with Sunjay. This image of happy co-existence, too, has been contested in the court by Mahesh Jethmalani, the lawyer representing Karisma’s children.
“Priya’s claim about maintaining a blended family and Karisma joining her for vacations and family dinners was all a public façade,” he said.
After Sunjay’s death, his staff — who once orchestrated his public presence and communications — have become Priya’s gatekeepers. They monitor what is published about her and relay her side of the story.
“I have been like a family to Sunjay, and I can say with authority that Priya is doing what he would have done. She is not speaking against anyone publicly and is handling things with dignity,” said a member of the communication team.
While Priya may be trying to keep herself out of the public eye, those handling her communications are a fairly vocal mouthpiece.
One of her PRs said that Mandhira Kapur was not in touch with Sunjay for the last four years. “She has now come back into the picture for money. Where was she for the last four years?”
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A bitter legacy
Inside the courtroom, the will lies under a microscope. Sunjay’s litigant son and daughter have challenged every small detail, from spelling mistakes to incorrect pronouns. A misspelling of 6-year-old Azarias’ name, calling him a she instead of a he, and the wrong residential addresses being filed have been presented as cracks in the will’s authenticity, which their lawyer, Mahesh Jethmalani, has alleged was “forged.”
They have also accused Priya of withholding the will for over seven weeks before presenting it at a family meeting on 30 July.
However, Priya’s lawyer Rajiv Nayar has dismissed the mistakes in the will document as “template” errors. On 20 November, he told the High Court that Sunjay had used his mother’s will as a template and the errors had been transferred from there. He even produced the document to prove his point.
“There is nothing suspicious about a husband giving everything in his assets to his wife,” Nayar argued.
In their petition, the children painted an intimate portrait of their bond with their father, recalling how they had been part of every milestone and triumph. They spoke of frequent family travels to places like Spain and South Africa and said he had repeatedly assured them of their financial security.
While the partition suit has kept the courts and a battery of lawyers occupied, social media has been in overdrive. Soon after Sunjay died, reports claimed that Priya changed her surname to Priya Sunjay Kapur. Other reports suggested that her daughter Safira — from her previous marriage to actor and hotelier Vikram Chatwal — dropped the surname Chatwal. Reddit gave Priya a new name: “the home wrecker.”
On Priya’s YouTube interview, the 300-odd comments are rife with sinister theories, including that she was “giving feelers to public before Sunjay was dispatched to other side”.
Across social media, the family saga has become a public theatre. Every post, every picture, every small change is dissected by an army of online detectives. “Safira dropped Chatwal after Sunjay’s death. Why now, when it never mattered before? Samaira changed her bio pic of Safira just last week. Timing is everything,” said one participant on a Reddit thread with over 350 comments.
Priya’s team has taken note of the daily news flow on the controversy.
“They are trying to make Komolika of daily soaps out of her. But she is doing everything legally. She was his wife. She is grieving, processing his death amid such allegations,” said a member of her PR team.
On the other side of the rift, meanwhile, there is outrage that his mother and children from Karisma have been excluded from the will. “They were close,” Rani’s lawyer Jethmalani told ThePrint.
Some relationships, though, have become stronger. Mandhira said that Sunjay’s death has brought the family closer to Karisma Kapoor, as they now “talk daily” about “how Priya is trying to snatch everything” from them.
“Can you imagine Priya has cut off Karisma’s kids’ debit card, credit card, and everything. I wish I could meet my brother one last time,” said Mandhira. Her WhatsApp DP shows Sunjay and the children together — a bond now being litigated in court.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)