Pataudi: Court blow

Bhopal, Oct. 4: Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi was today directed by a city court to share an ancestral house worth over Rs 100 crore with his two sisters.

One of the sisters, Sabiha, had moved the district and sessions court judge, N.C. Dixit, seeking the right to stay at the grand Flag Staff House which used to be the residence of their maternal grandfather Hamidullah Khan, the last Nawab of Bhopal.

Pataudi had refused to let her put up there when she visited Bhopal on July 25, 2003, with her husband, Sabiha said.

The former cricket captain responded that he was a tenant paying a monthly rent of Rs 2,000 and did not have the right to let anyone else stay at the house. Their mother, the late Sajida Sultan, Begum of Bhopal, had appointed him a tenant a few months before she died in 1995, he said.

In his brief verdict, the judge rejected Pataudi’s plea and observed that the said lease had expired on May 12 this year. He said he had examined the credentials of Pataudi’s sisters and found them to be sound.

According to Pataudi’s lawyer Akhtar Saeed Khan, the “family matter” will now be settled amicably.

The two sides also have the option of moving Jabalpur High Court, where several people professing to be members of Bhopal’s royal family have filed suits claiming rights over Nawab Hamidullah Khan’s estate, which includes 23 prime properties, worth hundreds of crores.

After the nawab died in 1960, his second daughter Sajida ? Pataudi’s mother ? became the legal owner of Flag Staff House. His other daughters were Abida and Rabia.

As per Muslim law of succession, after Sajida’s demise, her children Sabiha, Saleha and Mansur became the property’s owners.

Pataudi will now get half of Flag Staff House and his two sisters one-fourth each, according to the law. None of the three was present in court today. But Sabiha’s counsel said their stand was vindicated.

Pataudi and some relatives were recently involved in another litigation when the Babulal Gaur regime acquired a stud farm worth over Rs 200 crore, alleging that it was encroached on.

Bhopal collector Sanjay Shukla said the land belonged to the jails department. But within days of the government taking over the land, Yawar Rashid, Pataudi’s cousin, moved Supreme Court and secured a stay.

The state government has been fighting a legal battle on this issue since 2001.