Saif Ali Khan Family’s Sole Claim on Ancestral Property Challenged, Madhya Pradesh HC Orders Fresh Trial

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside a 25-year-old trial court decree that had affirmed actor Saif Ali Khan and his family's ownership of properties worth thousands of crores inherited from the former royal family of Bhopal.

Two appeals were filed against the common judgment dated February 14, 2000, passed by the District Judge, Bhopal, in Suit Nos. 63-A/1999 and 64-A/1999, wherein the claims of partition, possession, and settlement of the estate left by Nawab Hamidullah Khan were dismissed.

Nawab Hamidullah Khan was the last ruler of the princely state of Bhopal. He had three daughters—Abida Sultan, Sajida Sultan, and Rabia Sultan—with his first wife, Maimoona Sultan. While Abida Sultan migrated to Pakistan, Sajida Sultan married Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi. Their son, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, captained the Indian cricket team and later married actor Sharmila Tagore. The couple had three children: actor Saif Ali Khan, jewellery designer Saba Ali Khan, and actor Soha Ali Khan.

In 2000, a Bhopal district court had upheld the ownership of Nawab Hamidullah Khan's properties in favour of Sharmila Tagore, Saif Ali Khan, and his two sisters, ruling them as rightful successors. However, the order was challenged by Begum Suraiya Rashid—granddaughter of Nawab Hamidullah Khan’s elder brother Obaidullah Khan—and by Rabia Sultan, one of the Nawab’s daughters. 

They argued that after Hamidullah Khan’s death in 1960, the estate should have been divided among all legal heirs as per the Muslim Personal Law. They also challenged a 1962 Union Government order that recognised Sajida Sultan as the sole successor to the Nawab’s personal properties.

The defendants (heirs of Sajida Sultan), on the other hand, argued that succession to private properties was governed by the rule of primogeniture under the Bhopal Succession to the Throne Act, 1947, and that Sajida Sultan, as the next ruler under the Merger Agreement of 1949, inherited the entire estate to the exclusion of all other heirs. They asserted that the personal properties of the Nawab were not divisible and had rightly vested in the successor of the throne under Article 366(22) of the Constitution.

While granting the decree in favour of Sharmila Tagore, the trial court had relied on the Allahabad High Court’s 1997 ruling in Talat Fatima Hasan v. Nawab Syed Murtaza Ali Khan Sahib Bahadur, which held that the personal properties of a ruler devolve entirely to the successor of the Gaddi (throne).

However, the bench of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi noted that the said judgment had subsequently been overruled by the Supreme Court in 2020, and thus, the foundation of the trial court's reasoning no longer stood. He invoked Order 23A of the Code of Civil Procedure, which empowers the appellate court to remand a case where a retrial is deemed necessary.

"These are the suits for partition, and if ultimately, the trial court comes to the conclusion that suits have to be allowed then share of the parties can be determined only by the trial court while passing the preliminary decree and that can be further finalized by the trial court itself after carrying out the necessary formalities of partition," the high court noted. 

Further, court emphasized that given the age of the suits—originally filed in 1999—the trial court must dispose of the matter expeditiously, preferably within a year. The impugned judgment and decree were accordingly set aside, and both appeals were allowed with no order as to costs.

Case Title: Begum Suraiya Rashid & Others Vs. Begum Mehr Taj Nawab Sajida Sultan & Others and connected matter

Download judgment here