Billionaire inheritance feud spotlights India’s messy family succession
Sunjay Kapur, 53, suffered a heart attack on 12 June while playing polo in Surrey in the UK. He was an heir to Sona Comstar, a $3.6bn (£2.7bn) business empire he inherited from his father. The company, among India’s top auto component makers, has a global footprint with 10 plants spread across India, China, Mexico and the US.
A polo enthusiast, Kapur moved in the elite social circles of Indian capital Delhi, and reportedly shared a friendship with Prince William. He was married three times – first to designer Nandita Mahtani, then to 90s Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor, before marrying Priya Sachdev, a former model and entrepreneur, in 2017.
But weeks after his death, the question of succession has made Kapur and his family the subject of media speculation.
At the centre of it is Kapur’s mother Rani Kapur, former chairperson of Sona Comstar.
On 24 July, Rani Kapur sent a letter to the board of Sona Comstar, raising questions about her son’s death and appointments made by the company after that.
In the letter, which the BBC has seen, she alleged that Kapur’s death was under “highly suspicious and unexplained circumstances”.
The coroner’s office in Surrey told the BBC that after a postmortem, it had determined that Kapur died of natural causes. “The investigation has been closed,” the office said.
For more information see Devina Gupta “Billionaire inheritance feud spotlights India’s messy family succession,” BBC, August 9, 2025.
Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.