Capital-isation: The importance of Kapurthala House in Delhi

Why in the headlines

Recently, the ECI raided the Kapurthala House premises where Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann was staying during the run up to the Delhi Assembly elections. The ECI’s flying surveillance team (FST) arrived at the Kapurthala House on January 31 for a raid, following a complaint of “money distribution” filed on poll body’s cVIGIL portal. On Tuesday, AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting of the Punjab party leadership at the Kapurthala House. Prior to this, it came into the limelight in May 2023, when AAP Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha’s engagement ceremony with actor Parineeti Chopra was held there.

How Punjab govt took its possession

Kapurthala was a sovereign state until it merged with the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) and subsequently into the Dominion of India. The royal property was requisitioned through an order passed on June 17, 1950, under Section 3 of the Delhi Premises (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1947. On December 4, 1950, the Indian government took possession of the property from late Radheshyam Makhanilal Seksaria, who had purchased it from erstwhile Maharaja Paramjit Singh Bahadur, former Kapurthala ruler, by a registered sale deed dated January 10, 1950, for a consideration of Rs 1.5 lakh.

State’s long overdrawn battle to retain possession

It was a 59-year-long legal battle for the state government to retain the property’s possession.

Seksaria filed a suit in 1960 for the declaration of his title to the property in a Delhi district court. Subsequently, it was transferred to the high court in 1967. During the suit’s pendency, Seskaria died and his four children were substituted as plaintiffs in their capacity as his legal representatives. In 1989, a single-judge of the HC decided in favour of the plaintiffs on the grounds that it had been derequisitioned by the Indian government in 1987 — on the expiry of 17 years, as mandated by the 1952 Act. The Punjab government had submitted an appeal later, and a division HC bench held that the plaintiffs had no right in the property.

What happened thereafter

Several appeals and applications followed through the years in the HC and the Supreme Court, with the now repealed RTI also being used by the petitioners to fight their case, which finally returned before a Delhi HC division bench. The bench, in 2019, dismissed the petitioner’s right to the property on the ground that the erstwhile Kapurthala ruler had no title to the property after its requisition. Hence, he could not have conferred valid title on the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners.

About the Capital residence

The construction of Kapurthala House began in 1603 and completed in 1611. The residence has 66 rooms and a floor area of 11,000 sq ft. It was built by the erstwhile maharajas of Kapurthala as their capital residence — inspired by the French Renaissance style of architecture.

The state of Kapurthala

The history of Kapurthala is linked to the Ahluwalia Dynasty — founded by Baba Jassa Singh Ahluwalia in 1718. The Kapurthala state extended from Jagraon to the Beas. The fortunes of the Kapurthala state fluctuated during the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Raja Randhir Singh restored much of the state’s fortune during the Great Mutiny of 1857.