Billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, A $120-Million Mumbai Home, An 8-Year Dispute
NDTV
Like Lincoln House, other luxurious homes in Mumbai face similar disputes. South Court, built by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, has been unoccupied for decades.
Most Indian tycoons prefer to keep any gripes with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to themselves.
But for health-care billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, an eight-year wait to move into his $120 million Mumbai mansion has become too frustrating to remain silent.
The property, a former maharajah palace that housed the US consulate for more than half a century, is on a 2-acre plot on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Poonawalla bought it from the US government in what was the city's most-expensive residential deal at the time, but it's unclear whose land it sits on: both the Maharashtra state where Mumbai is located and the defense ministry claim ownership. The Indian government has halted the sale ever since.
"The government of India is not providing any rationale for holding it up," Mr Poonawalla, who made his fortune with the world's largest maker of vaccines, said in a recent interview in Dubai. "From what I understand, they don't want this huge amount of about $120 million to go to the US. It's just a political and socialist decision."
