The Bombay Parsi Punchayet is the wealthiest and most powerful Parsi institution in the world. It is the trustee of the fire temples in Mumbai, of the Doongerwadi estate with the Towers of Silence, and of a very large stock of subsidised housing — several thousand flats in a city where property is among the most expensive on earth, allocated to Parsis at nominal rents. Its trustees are elected by adult Parsi voters and the elections are contested with considerable ferocity, fought over the conversion question, the disposal of the dead, and the management of the property. The housing is the point at which the theological argument becomes material: eligibility depends on being recognised as a Parsi Zoroastrian, so the question of who counts — the child of a Parsi mother and a non-Parsi father, for instance — determines access to accommodation in Mumbai, and this has been litigated. Critics inside the community argue that charity has been used as leverage; defenders argue the trusts were endowed for a defined beneficiary class.