SC Dismisses Woman’s Plea Claiming Red Fort as Ancestral Property

The Supreme Court of India on Monday, 5 May 2025, dismissed a plea moved by one Sultana Begum, who claimed to be the legal heir of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II and was seeking possession of Delhi's Red Fort.

While terming the plea 'misconceived' and 'meritless', a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar declined to entertain the matter.

Sultana Begum had filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging a Delhi High Court order, which had rejected her petition seeking possession of Delhi’s Red Fort.

In her plea, Begum claimed that she was the widow of the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar. She further claimed that the property in question was unlawfully taken away from her by the East India Company in 1857.

Her petition was first heard by a single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court, which dismissed it in 2021, citing an inordinate delay of over 162 years. The court held that such a long delay was 'not justifiable'.

Upon appeal, a Division Bench of Justices Vibhu Bakhru and Tushar Rao Gedela also dismissed the appeal, noting that the petition had been filed after an unexplained delay of over two and a half years.

Case Title: Sultana Begum v Union of India