Govt sympathetic, ex-raja may get back palaces
The erstwhile Raja of Mehmoodabad, who had stayed back in India after his father, Raja Amir Ali Khan, opted for Pakistani citizenship and left the country, should be able to retain his palaces and other property, worth about Rs 3,000 crores, under the fresh provisions of the Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill of 2010 being brought in Parliament in the ongoing session.
The Union home ministry has decided to take a sympathetic view in all such cases where the properties have already been handed over to the “legal heirs” under court directions, one such case being that of the erstwhile Raja of Mehmoodabad, who had won the case in the Supreme Court in 2005.
The amendments being brought by the home ministry are expected to allow the “legal heirs” to retain such property returned to them under a judicial pronouncement if the Centre is also convinced of the decision.
The ministry is also looking at limiting the definition of a legal heir to avoid allowing encroachers, or others to whom the property may later have been sold, to benefit from the amended law.
Minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid and several members of Parliament had raised concerns over the bill following which the ministry decided to take a re-look.
The bill was aimed at preventing the Indian family members of those who migrated to Pakistan at Partition from going to court to regain possession of the properties of their forefathers that had been seized as “enemy property”, thereby vesting it in a custodian.
The erstwhile raja’s properties are in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
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