The newly-elected Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trust allotted houses to 44 Parsis at its first board meeting held on Tuesday. The new trustees were of the view that 44 of the 90 cases that were given provision of allotment of houses by the former trustees needed to be considered first.
Chairperson of BPP Dinshaw Rusi Mehta said, “Various issues were discussed at the meeting. Among them was the housing issue. We decided that there are some 40 cases among the old ones that should be given houses.”
The trust provides housing to Parsis who are poor, needy, old and engaged to be married.
The charity commissioner will now hear the cases on November 14. The cases will be put up before him as the commissioner had asked the new board to stick to the decision of the previous board. The previous board had unanimously passed allotment of over 90 houses after some aggrieved Parsis staged a protest at the charity commissioner’s office.
The charity commissioner had stopped all financial transactions after a section of Parsis complained to him under section 41/d of the Bombay Public Trust Act (which deals with removal of trustees). There were charges of nepotism, irregularity in providing housing and charges of doing ‘charity to the rich instead of the poor’. “These cases will be put up at the charity commissioner’s office when the hearing takes place,” said Noshir Dadrawala, a trustee.