The Delhi Excessive Court docket Friday dismissed an attraction filed by the widow of the great-grandson of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II, searching for possession of the Pink Fort within the Capital on account of allegedly being the authorized inheritor of the emperor.
A bench of Performing Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela dismissed the attraction filed by Sultana Begum in opposition to the December 2021 resolution of a HC single choose, noting the problem was filed after a delay of over two-and-a-half years, which couldn’t be condoned.
Begum, primarily based in Howrah close to Kolkata, informed The Indian Categorical she had first moved a petition within the HC in 2021 “within the hope that the federal government will be aware of me and assist me out financially”.
Begum is the widow of Mirza Bedar Bukht, who was born in 1920 in then Rangoon, Burma, and is the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar II. Bukht, who died in 1980 in Kolkata, by no means earned a livelihood, she mentioned.
“We had been residing in Taltala and subsisted on the pension he obtained because the authorized inheritor of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, which was a number of lots of of rupees. In 1984, I shifted to Howrah with my youngsters, making an attempt to boost them single-handedly. After he died, I labored every now and then — operating a tea stall, making bangles, however now age has caught up and I’m confined to mattress more often than not,” she added.
Based on Begum, Bukht was the final formally recognised direct male descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar, who initially obtained a pension from the British. He then obtained pension from the “Central authorities, the Nizam and the Hazrat Nizamuddin Belief”, her petition has acknowledged.
Begum mentioned she now lives off Rs 6,000 she receives as a pension from the Hazrat Nizamuddin Belief as being a authorized inheritor of Bahadur Shah Zafar II.
Residing in a hutment dwelling at Howrah, Begum mentioned she is in dire want of cash. “I’ve a son and 5 daughters. The eldest of my daughters died in 2022, delaying the submitting of the attraction… My youngsters remained uneducated, none of them might end faculty and we proceed to dwell in penury,” she added.
Begum had approached the Delhi HC in 2021 alleging that her household was disadvantaged of the possession of the Pink Fort as a result of Bahadur Shah Zafar II — who was the Delhi emperor from 1836 to 1857 — was exiled and the Pink Fort was illegally captured by the British on September 19, 1857. She claimed she legally inherited Pink Fort from Bahadur Shah Zafar II and can be entitled to compensation for its alleged unlawful occupation by the Union authorities.
The courtroom of Justice Rekha Palli, on December 20, 2021, had dismissed the petition on the outset as not maintainable on the grounds of delay of 164 years.
The courtroom had recorded, “… even when the petitioner’s case had been to be accepted that late Bahadur Shah Zafar II was illegally disadvantaged of his property by the East India Firm, as to how the writ petition can be maintainable after such an inordinate delay of over 164 years when it’s an admitted place that the petitioner’s predecessors had been all the time conscious of this place.”
In November this yr, Begum appealed in opposition to the 2021 order earlier than a division bench, submitting that “the Union authorities is having unlawful possession of the Pink Fort, which is the ancestral property of the appellant and the federal government is just not keen to offer compensation or possession of such property, which is a direct violation of petitioner’s basic proper and constitutional proper.”
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