Mumbai, June 16 -- Perhaps just a symbol of nostalgia in the age of high-speed internet, a bunch of aerogrammes, once used for affordable international correspondence, has helped a Jewish man in Sweden stake a claim to his late mother's 1,000-square-foot flat in Colaba, 18 years after her death. Over 40 aerogrammes and letters received from his deceased parents that Arnold Samson, now 80, had preserved since the 1970s, bolstered his case in the Bombay High Court to prove that he was the son of Rosalind Samson, a Jewish woman who lived in Mumbai and died on February 22, 2008. Last week, the high court revoked the probate it had granted in July 2009 on Rosalind's will dated February 6, 2008. Under the will, she had purportedly bequeathed her flat in Bueno Vista, a building near the Colaba post office, to her now-deceased caretaker, Vimla Rao, and her foster son, Rahim Jawat Mohammed. Under the Indian Succession Act, probate is the court's seal of approval on a will that makes it valid and enforceable. Ramesh Gwalani, the sole executor of Rosalind's will, had filed a petition in 2008 seeking probate, claiming she had no surviving heir. Since there was no contest over the will, the high court had granted probate in Gwalani's favour in July 2009. However, in 2010, Arnold, a special education teacher, who lives in Malmo, Sweden, filed a petition urging the court to revoke the probate. His petition stated that he was Rosalind's son and only heir, and that she had died intestate (without a will). Arnold also stated that the probate was obtained "suppressio veri and suggestio falsi" (suppression of truth and suggestion of a falsehood). In his petition, Arnold said that he was born to his parents, Rosalind Samson and Hari Kapur, in Mumbai in 1946. After his parents' divorce in 1956, he lived with his mother in Mumbai until 1962, before moving to Israel and later settling in Sweden in 1970, he said. In 2009, after Rosalind's death, Arnold approached the Bueno Vista CHS to transfer his mother's flat in his name. However, he learnt that Rao and Mohammed had each received 50% of the flat's undivided shares. Arnold then filed a civil suit against Rao and Mohammed after learning about his mother's purported will, probated by the high court, based on which the flat had been transferred to them. He claimed that both of them were aware that he was Rosalind's son, but they feigned ignorance about it. However, Gwalani claimed that Arnold was trying to grab the property, and there was no "clinching material" to show that he was Rosalind's son. He said that Arnold could also not prove that Rosalind was married to Hari Kapur, and that the documents and photographs he had produced were "bereft of any evidentiary value". Rao and Mohammed claimed that Arnold did not look after Rosalind when she was admitted to the hospital before her death, nor did he attend her last rites despite being in Goa on a holiday. They said that they had both looked after Rosalind like an "elder sister", including bearing the expenses of her hospitalisation and funeral. They also claimed that Arnold had tried to lay claim to Rosalind's property by relying on "fictitious documents". However, Arnold then presented to the court letters and aerogrammes-which served as both letters and envelopes with glued flaps-that he had exchanged with his mother in the late seventies and early eighties, as evidence of the long-distance relationship between a son and his mother. In the letters, Arnold and Rosalind discussed their personal lives and, among other things, their keen interest in Bollywood. In one of her letters to her son, Rosalind, who worked at the US Consulate in Mumbai, had written about meeting actor Rajesh Khanna. Justice N J Jamadar noted that in 30 aerogrammes, 10 letters with envelopes and five without, Rosalind had consistently referred to Arnold as "her son". He said that the "broad feature of those communications indicates that they were addressed to the petitioner (Arnold) as the son of the deceased." While the lawyers for Rao and Mohammed pointed out that some of the letters were without envelopes, and did not bear an inward stamp from Sweden and only an outward stamp from India, justice Jamadar said, "The court cannot lose sight of the fact that those letters and aerogrammes were addressed since the late 1970s. It would be taking a very rigid view of the matter to insist that the petitioner must produce envelopes, or, for that matter, offer an explanation as to the absence of the inward stamps and envelopes." Rao and Mohammed's lawyers also argued that the letters in which Rosalind discussed matters related to her personal life with her son were not typical of a mother-and-son relationship. Justice Jamadar replied that "human emotions, personalities and relationships cannot be confined to a straitjacket.A fact which is taboo in one society/situation may be openly discussed between the parent and the children in another society/situation." The court also noted two aerogrammes from Kapur to Arnold in 1976 and 1977, referring to Arnold's family as his daughter-in-law and grandson. The court said that the letters, a birth certificate in which Kapur was named as Arnold's father, show that the latter had "brought adequate material on record to substantiate the claim that he was born out of the relationship between the deceased (Rosalind) and the late Hari Kapur."...