A ROYAL PROPERTY WRANGLE

A COURT ORDER ON PROPERTIES LINKED TO THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BHOPAL INVOKES THE CONTROVERSIAL ENEMY PROPERTY ACT, AND SPOTLIGHTS A DECADES-LONG LEGAL TANGLE

- Rahul Noronha

Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan is going through a tumultuous time. But even before the January 16 knife attack on him by an intruder at his Mumbai home, a Madhya Pradesh High Court order reignited a dispute over property pertaining to the erstwhile royal family of Bhopal, of which Saif is a prominent member. While no official estimate of the value of the royal properties that Saif and his relatives have laid claim to as inheritor has been declared, it is estimated to be over Rs 10,000 crore. Other than land in various areas, the properties under the scanner include prominent Bhopal landmarks like the Flag Staff House, the luxury hotel Noor-Us-Sabah Palace, the Dar-UsSalam residential property, bungalow of Habibi and the Ahmedabad Palace.

So how did the case of the Bhopal royal properties land up in court? While there have been several disputes among members of the Bhopal royal family over property, in December 2014, the Custodian of Enemy Property, a Central government department based in Mumbai, sent a letter citing section 11 of the Enemy Property Act 1968—which allows the Central government to claim properties or businesses belonging to individuals who migrated to Pakistan after Partition or adopted the citizenship of China—to Saif. The Centre’s legal focus lay on the migration of Abida Sultan, the eldest daughter of Hamidullah Khan, the last nawab of Bhopal, to Pakistan in 1950. Abida is the sister of Saif’s grandmother, Sajida Sultan, the second daughter of the nawab, who inherited the properties after his death. Sajida married the Nawab of Pataudi, cricketer Iftikhar Ali Khan, and was the mother of the iconic Indian cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan ‘Tiger’ Pataudi, Saif’s father.