On Wednesday, 22nd July, the descendants of the Nizam of Hyderabad were back in the London High Court to challenge a court order related to funds over £35 million lying in a UK bank account.
The dispute was centred around £1,007,940 and nine shillings transferred in 1948 from the then Nizam of Hyderabad to the high commissioner of the newly-formed state of Pakistan in Britain. That amount had since grown in a London bank account amounting upto £35 million. The Nizam's descendants, supported by India, claimed it belonged to them and Pakistan counter-claimed that it was rightfully theirs.
In October 2019, the Royal Courts of Justice in London had ruled in favour of India and the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad and his brother. The above parties had reached a confidential agreement in a decades-old legal dispute with Pakistan over funds belonging to the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad at the time of Partition in 1947.
Now in a fresh spin to the case, other descendants of the Nizam, Najaf Ali Khan on behalf of 116 heirs of the late seventh Nizam, are challenging that ruling by accusing the administrator of the seventh Nizam's estate of "breach of trust".
Appearing remotely from India, Khan told the court that the funds were released improperly to India and the two princes - Prince Mukarram Jah and his younger brother Muffakham Jah. They also claimed "chronic financial hardship".
"I determined the beneficial ownership of that money in my judgment in 2019... It is impossible to accept that he can be entitled to reopen the proceedings," said Judge Smith, dismissing Najaf Ali Khan''s attempt to reopen the case in a statement to the Press Trust of India.
The judge will continue to hear arguments over Wednesday and Thursday over allegations of impropriety by the administrator of late seventh Nizam's estate. The administrator apparently holds around £400,000 from the money left over following payments made to the state of India and the two princes based on their confidential agreement over the total funds.
"The Nizam VII was beneficially entitled to the Fund and those claiming in right of Nizam VII - the Princes and India - are entitled to have the sum paid out to their order," Justice Smith had ruled in favour of India and Princes Mukarram and Muffakham Jah in October 2019.
"Pakistan's contentions of non-justiciability by reason of the foreign act of state doctrine and non-enforceability on grounds of illegality both fail," the High Court verdict had concluded, dismissing Pakistan's claim.
