Setback For Saif Ali Khan, Family As Rs 15,000 Crore Property Case Goes To Retrial
In a major judicial development concerning one of Bhopal's most protracted royal property disputes, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside a two-decade-old trial court judgment and ordered a fresh hearing in the celebrated case involving the descendants of the erstwhile Nawab of Bhopal, late Mohammad Hamidullah Khan.
A single bench of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi, delivering the verdict on first appeals, ruled that the civil suits pertaining to the division of the Nawab's estate were erroneously dismissed by the District Court, Bhopal, in 2000.
The trial court had based its ruling on a now over-ruled precedent laid down by the Allahabad High Court in the Talat Fatima Hasan case. The appellants, comprising multiple family members including noted celluloid figure Sharmila Tagore, Saif Ali Khan and his sister.
Two civil suits were filed in 1999 seeking partition, possession, and a proper accounting of the ancestral estate that includes an expansive list of properties across categories.
They contended that, upon Nawab Hamidullah Khan's death in 1960, the properties -- asserted to be his personal holdings -- should have devolved upon his heirs under Muslim Personal Law, and not solely upon his daughter, Begum Sajida Sultan.
However, the Government of India had, through a letter dated January 10, 1962, recognised Sajida Sultan as the sole successor, citing the Bhopal Merger Agreement of 1949 and provisions under Article 366(22) of the Constitution.
The defence argued that under the law of primogeniture and terms of the merger, the ruler's private properties passed entirely to the appointed successor of the Gaddi - not to be divided amongst heirs.
The High Court has now found fault with the trial court's heavy reliance on the Allahabad judgment, which the Supreme Court explicitly overturned in 2020, affirming that private property of erstwhile rulers must be treated under personal succession laws and not merely as political inheritance.
Given the "outdated legal basis" of the original ruling and the nature of the dispute, which hinges on familial succession and claims over significant immovable property, the High Court invoked its powers under Order 14 Rule 23A of the Civil Procedure Code to remand the matter back for retrial.
Acknowledging the long pendency of the case - originally filed more than two decades ago - the Court urged the lower court to expedite proceedings and ideally conclude the trial within one year.
The judgment signals a renewed legal battle over the legacy and wealth of one of India's most storied princely houses, where tradition, law, and lineage continue to intersect in complex and often contested ways.
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The Hindu
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- The Hindu
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The court held that the right to housing is a fundamental right and that slum residents could not be treated as 'secondary citizens'. It mandated 'meaningful engagement' with residents before any eviction and directed the government to frame a comprehensive rehabilitation policy. This led to the enactment of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board Act in 2010 and the subsequent notification of the Delhi Slum & JJ Rehabilitation and Relocation Policy in 2015. The policy laid down a clear three-pronged test for a slum to be eligible for rehabilitation: it must have come up before January 1, 2006; the individual shanties within it must have been built before January 1, 2015; and it must consist of at least 50 households. The policy prioritised on-site rehabilitation – upgrading the slum where it stood or relocating residents within a five-kilometer radius to ensure their livelihoods and children's education were not disrupted. 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It is not mentioned in the 2015 policy or its parent Act.' The 69th National Sample Survey Office report from 2012 identified 6,343 slums in Delhi. By limiting the policy's protection to just 10% of them, the High Court's judgment made lakhs of slum residents vulnerable to eviction without rehabilitation. 'Welfare legislation must be interpreted in a liberal, inclusionary manner,' Singh said. 'However, this judgment is based on apprehension and exclusion.' This exclusionary approach has since been followed by the High Court in a series of cases in which the court has refused to provide relief to residents of demolished slums because of them not being part of the 675-cluster list. The Supreme Court upheld this decision in July 2023, further cementing the restrictive interpretation. Protector to destroyer The case of Madrasi Camp slum is another example of this new judicial approach that does not centre the fundamental rights of slum dwellers. The original public interest litigation in the Shabnam Burney case had nothing to do with the slum. Instead, it was a targeted petition against two builders in Shaheen Bagh. 'The court fell into error by expanding the scope of the petition to the whole of Delhi and passing a carte blanche order,' said Rahman. He contended that the order was passed in ignorance of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board Act and the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Act, which protect these slums. Significantly, the High Court's order even bypassed the protection granted to the list of 675 slums in its own 2022 Vaishali order. Rahman pointed out that Madrasi camp was within that list. The court's order in Shabnam Burney effectively gave the executive a free pass to carry out demolitions of any slums it deems to be on 'the Yamuna river bank, river bed and drains flowing into river Yamuna'. 'The authorities are now using this court order as a shield to carry out demolitions,' said Kamlesh Kumar Mishra, an advocate who has also represented slum dwellers. 'They go to the ground and say, 'We are only following the court's directions.'' Indeed, demolitions have been carried out in the Bhoomiheen camp in Kalkaji, Chander Shekhar Azad colony in Wazirpur, Shiv Basti in Patel Nagar and Sanjay Camp in Gokal Puri, even though all of them are part of the list of 675 protected slum list. This trend, of the judiciary providing open sanction to the executive for demolitions, is what legal experts find most alarming. 'The state wants to shun its responsibilities and put the burden on the court,' said Harshit Anand, a Supreme Court advocate who has represented slum dwellers in eviction cases. 'The court, in turn, is becoming more executive-minded than the executive itself.' Mishra described this as 'windshield mentality'. 'A person travelling in a car would always see jhuggi dwellers, street vendors or the homeless as something which is dirtying their view and their roads,' he explained. 'The courts are failing to see that the very people whose homes they are ordering to be demolished are the ones who are servicing the city.' Human cost The consequences of these demolitions are devastating. Families who have lived in these areas for decades, with their livelihoods and social networks deeply embedded in the locality, are suddenly uprooted. In the case of Madrasi Camp, residents are being offered rehabilitation in Narela, nearly 40 kilometres away. 'Most of these people are daily wagers, domestic workers, drivers,' said Rahman. 'How can they travel 40 km every day for work? Their children go to nearby schools. Their entire lives will be disrupted.' Even for those who are deemed eligible for rehabilitation, the process is fraught with uncertainty and hardship. They are often shifted to poorly constructed transit camps or relocated to flats in far-flung areas that lack basic amenities like schools, shops, and transport. The courts, once seen as the last resort for the city's most vulnerable, now seem to be overlooking their plight. 'There has been a shift in the judicial attitude,' said Singh. 'The courts are not inclined to grant relief. They see these people as illegal encroachers.'
