New claimants want to reopen rampur’s 47-year-old property dispute again - times of india

Rampur family: Nawab Raza Ali Khan in extreme right (in cap) with his sister Nawabzadi Kulsoom Begum in white in the middle. A dusty town barely four hours from Delhi, Rampur is famous for

its cuisine and the switch knife known as Rampuri chaaku. It’s also known for the Rampur hound and the Raza Library. But in recent years, it’s been in the news for the country’s

longest-running civil dispute among squabbling descendants of the late Nawab of Rampur. Last year, a Supreme Court ruling seemed to have settled the matter.But now five new claimants to the

late Rampur ruler’s material legacy – palaces, vehicles, weapons and jewellery – have surfaced and they want to be added to the court-approved list of 16 descendants. Rampur became a place

of consequence after the Rohilla Afghans established an independent state here in 1774. The Nawabs of Rampur were able to keep their state intact despite the turmoil of the 18th and

19th-century. As they negotiated their sovereign status vis-à-vis the new masters of the realm – the British – Rampur became a 15-gun salute princely state of British India (a British system

of ranking princely states by deciding how many guns need to open up in salute every time the heads of the states made ceremonial visits to British-administered provinces). Kulsoom Begum or

Nanhi Begum whose descendents are staking claim on the Rampur property The state had to renegotiate its sovereignty with free India and became the first princely state to merge with the

Indian Union in 1949. This was under Nawab Raza Ali Khan. When he died in 1966, he had three wives, three sons and six daughters. His eldest son, Murtaza Ali Khan, succeeded him, and the

government recognised him as the sole inheritor of all his father’s private properties and issued a certificate to this effect. But his brother, Zulfiquar Ali Khan, married to former Lok

Sabha member Noor Bano Begum, challenged this in court. This was the genesis of the property dispute in which the courts were asked to decide if inheritance should be based on Muslim

personal law or the unique gaddi system the royal family followed before joining the Indian Union. The case went on for 47 years until in July 2019, the Supreme Court decided in favour of

Muslim personal law which recognised all sons and daughters as legal heirs. This totted up to 16 descendants. The SC set a deadline of December 2020 to resolve the dispute. But even as a

government monitored audit of the palaces, guns, vehicles and jewellery is taking place, there are five new claimants – descendants of the Nawab’s youngest sister, Nawabzadi Kulsoom Begum or

Nanhi Begum. Her grandson, Salman Ali Khan, says, “As the sister of Raza Ali Khan and daughter of Nawab Hamid Ali Khan, my grandmother has a right in the property as do we.” Apart from

Salman, the new claimants are Sherouth Ali Khan, Sanam Ali Khan, Saira Ali Khan and Mehrunissa Begum, the daughter-in-law of Nanhi Begum. “My grandmother was merely 10 years old when her

father Hamid Ali Khan passed away. She was deprived of her rights,” Khan, a former advertising professional, says. Nanhi Begum’s grandchildren tried to obtain a stay on the property

division, but their plea was turned down by a district court. They now plan to move Supreme Court for a stay while also trying to establish their rights as descendants at a civil court in

Rampur. Chetan Mathur, the lawyer for the new claimants, says, “This branch of the family was never made party to the division of property case and their rights have been ignored.” However,

Harsh Gupta, the lawyer of the late Zulfiquar Ali Khan’s side of the family, says that nobody except the legal heirs of Nawab Raza Ali Khan have any claim to the property.