Why a decades-old royal property tussle linked to Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan returns to trial court in MP

Begum Suraiya Rashid, heir of Obaidullah Khan, the elder brother of the erstwhile Nawab of Bhopal Hamidullah Khan, and Qamar Taj Rabia Sultan, one of the Nawab’s daughters, represented by Advocate Aadil Boparia, filed appeals challenging a trial court order in 2000.

The court decreed two personal properties in favour of the heirs of Sajida Sultan, the second daughter of Nawab Hamidullah, and Saif’s paternal grandmother. Sajida was declared Nawab following Hamidullah’s death, and she died in 1995. The decision of the trial court had come in partition suits moved by the heirs of the Nawab’s family in 1999.

After 25 years of the appeals being heard before the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh HC, Justice Sanjay Dwivedi, in an order on June 30, allowed them. The bench, however, remanded all the parties back to the trial court, and granted the liberty to move an appropriate application before the trial court.

The appellant heirs contended that the trial court erroneously assumed that the private properties of the Nawab are part of the throne and will thus automatically pass on to the successor to the throne. They argued that the properties have nothing to do with succession, and the partition of the properties will be governed by the personal law of succession.

Concurring with the appellants’ submissions, the Madhya Pradesh High Court said, “…The matters need to be remanded back to the trial Court for deciding it afresh because these are the suits for partition. And if ultimately, the trial Court comes to the conclusion that suits have to be allowed, then the share of the parties can be determined only by the trial Court while passing the preliminary decree, and that can be further finalised by the trial Court itself after carrying out the necessary formalities of partition.”

“Thus, in my opinion, the impugned judgment and decree deserve to be and are hereby set aside….It is made clear that since the suits were initially filed in the year 1999, therefore, the trial Court shall make all possible efforts to conclude and decide it expeditiously, preferably within a period of one year,” added the court.