As the thought goes- Greed is not a financial issue, it's a heart issue- an ambitious account sought to claim his share in his family's £160 million palm oil business by forging his deceased mother's signature.
As per a report in MailOnline, Girish Dahyabhai Patel, from Highgate, used a pre-signed blank document and added a will to get his hands over a £40 million stake in the family's plantation in Malaysia.
Judge Andrew Simmonds at the High Court in London, said, "Regrettably, I have reached the conclusion that, despite his professional and business achievements, the truth is a flexible concept for Girish, to be fashioned according to his own interests and requirements."
Patel was caught after a minute forensic analysis was conducted which revealed a faint indentation of her signature elsewhere on the paper. It showed she had signed the sheet while putting her name to several blank documents, one on top of the other, to use.
Patel fell out with his three brothers in 2009, and has ever since been "at odds with some, or all" stated the judge. It was known that the reputed family had been caught in a long dispute, with several legal cases ongoing in different countries.
Their mother Prabhavati Dahyabhai Patel's death in September 2011, only added the fire. It all began when Yashwant Patel, 69, doctor based in New York, produced a will made in 1986, stating that everything was left to him. Once the document was approved, Girish put forwards another document, he claimed his mother had signed in 2005. In the ongoing battle, their third brother Suresh, 63, backed Yashwant, while the fourth, Rajnikanth, 71, did not take sides.
Girish claimed that on a visit to London in 2005, his mother asked him to make a new will. He said she was concerned that on her death, some of her money might be given to the Swaminarayan Temple in Edgware, a Hindu sect she didn't support. She insisted that the will be in his favour, so he could distribute to charities of her choosing when she died.
Girish Patel added that she went to his offices in North Acton, West London, and put her name to the will, which was translated into Gujarati by him with witnesses present.
Judge Simmonds however refuted his claims, saying that apart from "unreliable" evidence put forward by Patel, there was on affirmation on how the will was signed. He said that the mother never mentioned it and he never spoke of it himself, not even bringing it up when it would have proven to work in his advantage during other litigation.
Instead. analysis of the document backed Yashwant's statement on how the family signed blank documents in bulk so business could be conducted in the absence of others.
Tests also revealed specks of printer ink on top of the signature, but none underneath, meaning the signature came before the text. "I find that there were available to Girish blank papers pre-signed by the deceased which enabled him to forge the will, utilising a genuine but old signature of the deceased," said Judge Simmonds.
Girish also conducted a "last minute joint revision" session before the trial despite being told not to discuss their evidence. The judge said, Girish had "brazenly lied" when asked about it under oath, and admitted having done so. "I would, in the normal course of events, expect such a witness to be reliable and trustworthy. However, Girish is a self-confessed liar and even when accepting that he had lied to the courty, there was a certain insouciance in his responses which increased, rather than allayed, my concers as to his reliability generally."
On finding the forgery to be real, the judge said, "I accept Yashwant's contention that Girish had a strong motive for forging the will. It provided him...with control over a $50m stake in (the palm oil plantation) as well as a number of tactical advantages in the bitterly-fought litigation with his brothers." Following the ruling, Girish agreed to pay £450,000 on account of his brother's total legal costs which are estimated at £550,000.
