The fight between Lodha scions Abhishek and Abhinandan seems to be escalating with the latter's House of Abhinandan Lodha now being accused by Abhishek's Macrotech of using fabricated documents to use the registered Lodha trademark.
In January this year. Macrotech, among the country's largest real estate developers, which is run by Abhishek Lodha had approached the Mumbai High Court, in a bid to restrict younger brother Abhinandan's House of Abhinanan Lodha (HoABL) from using the Lodha brand.
On Wednesday, Macrotech alleged that certain HoABL entities had used purported board resolutions of the company containing a no objection for use of the company’s trademarks and filed the same with government authorities.
Macrotech said that no such board meeting was held on the said date and the company's board had never approved any such board resolutions.
"Such board resolutions filed with the governmental authorities have signature of company’s one independent director. This signature is not his signature and is significantly different from his true signature," Macrotech further said.
It also alleged that the signature and photograph were changed on the pan card copy that had been attached with the fabricated board resolution.
"The boards of at least two HoABL companies approved and procured a change in their corporate names to the names starting with ‘Lodha’ (which is the registered trademark of the company) from the relevant government authorities, using the above referred documents (which were not issued / approved by the company) and used the changed name of these companies for furtherance of their business activities," stated Macrotech.
HoABL has rejected Macrotech's allegations. A spokesperson for Lodha Ventures said HoABL was internally looking into the matter.
"Suffice it to state that the House of Abhinandan Lodha does not admit any of the allegations of fraud and forgery sought to be attributed to us," the spokesperson said.
Macrotech's board has constituted a special committee of directors to look into the matter and take appropriate legal action.
Lodha Developers was set up by Mangal Prabhat Lodha back in 1980. Lodha, a BJP leader, won the assembly elections from Mumbai's Malabar Hill constituency for the seventh time in a row last year.
As a part of the company's reorganisation back in 2015, his elder son Abhishek got control of the real estate business, later renamed and listed as Macrotech Developers. Younger son Abhinandan later started his own real estate business under the House of Abhinanan Lodha brand.
