Mir Osman Ali Khan was the 7th and last Nizam of Hyderabad.
London:
The descendants of the Nizam of Hyderabad returned to the High Court in London on Wednesday to challenge a court ruling relating to more than £ 35million in a UK bank account.
In a judgment handed down at the Royal Courts of Justice in London last year, Judge Marcus Smith ruled in favor of India and eighth incumbent Nizam of Hyderabad and his brother, who had reached a confidential settlement in a decades-old legal dispute with Pakistan over funds belonging to the Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad at the time of partition in 1947.
However, other descendants of the Nizam, Najaf Ali Khan, on behalf of 116 heirs at the end of the Seventh Nizam, sought to challenge this decision this week by accusing the administrator of the Seventh Nizam’s estate of “breach of trust.” .
Mr Khan, appearing remotely from India, told the court the funds had been irregularly released to India and the two princes – Prince Mukarram Jah and his younger brother Muffakham Jah – and also claimed ” chronic financial difficulties “.
“I determined the beneficial ownership of this money in my judgment in 2019 … It is impossible to accept that he may have the right to reopen the proceedings,” said Justice Smith, rejecting Najaf Ali’s attempt Khan to reopen the case.
However, the judge will continue to hear arguments on Wednesday and Thursday over allegations of impropriety by the administrator of the estate at the end of the Seventh Nizam.
The administrator apparently holds around £ 400,000 of the money left over from payments made to the State of India and the two princes based on their confidential agreement on the total funds.
The arguments center on the legal costs accrued in the case and Withers LLP, who has acted for VIII Nizam since Pakistan initiated proceedings in 2013, returned to court with attorney James Brithwell appearing on behalf of from India.
“The Nizam VII was entitled to the Fund and those who claimed the right of Nizam VII – the princes and India – are entitled to payment of the sum to their order,” Judge Smith ruled in favor of India and the Princes Mukarram and Muffakham Jah in October 2019.
The dispute revolved around 1,007,940 pounds and nine shillings transferred in 1948 from the Nizam of the time of Hyderabad to the High Commissioner in Great Britain of the new state of Pakistan. That amount had since increased in a bank account in London to £ 35million as the Indian-backed Nizam descendants claimed it was theirs and Pakistan replied that it was rightfully theirs.
“Pakistan’s claims of non-justiciability on account of the foreign act of state doctrine and non-opposability on grounds of illegality both fail,” the High Court’s verdict concluded, dismissing the Pakistan request.
The decision marked an important conclusion in an extremely long legal battle, which also saw the Indian government, the princes and the administrator of the estate of Nizam VII compromising their differences and reaching a confidential settlement agreement in 2018.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
