A London court decree put an end to the decades-long court battle for the possession of the wealth worth crores of rupees belonging to the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad.
The origins of the dispute go back to the 1947 partitioning of British India. The Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, had not been able to decide whether his state should be in Pakistan or India. At last India annexed the princely state of Hyderabad in a military operation. By then the Nizam had given 1 million British pound sterlings to Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UK.His descendants alleged that he had asked for the money to be returned weeks after the annexation by India took place, but then Pakistan refused to give it back. The National Westminster Bank in which the money was deposited freeze the account until the claim was settled between royal inheritors and Pakistan.
“The court today made it clear that it did not think the money was handed to Pakistan outright. There is overwhelming evidence that Pakistan only held the money as a trustee and it actually belonged to the Nizam,” Paul Hewitt, the lawyer for Nizam’s inheritors- Prince Mukarram Jha and his brother Mufakham Jha who stood by Indian administration throughout the court battle.
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