Family of Indian royals wins legal battle against Pakistan over £35m deposited in high commissioner’s UK bank account in 1948 after the partitioning of British India
- Mir Osman Ali Khan deposited the money in the National Westminster Bank
- He was unable to decide whether Hyderabad belonged to India or Pakistan
- Was alleged to have asked for the money back when the annexation happened
Mir Osman Ali Khan(pictured above) deposited the money in 1948
A family of Indian royals has won a legal battle against Pakistan over £35 million that was deposited in the high commissioners UK account in 1948.
The original sum of £1 million had been deposited by the last Nizam (king) of Hyderabad, and interest collected on the deposit means that the total has now reached £35 million.
A judge at the High Court in London ruled that there was no evidence to back Pakistan’s claims to the money.
The dispute is said to date back to the 1947 partitioning of British India when the princely state of Hyderabad was annexed in a military operation.
The cash transfer had been made shortly before that and the BBC reported that the Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, had not been able to decide if his state should belong to Pakistan or India.
His descendants have since alleged that he had asked for the money to be returned weeks after the annexation took place –but that Pakistan refused to give it back.
National Westminster Bank (stock image above) said it would hold the funds until a court decided who they should go to
Both his family and the Indian state has helped fight the case and the National Westminster Bank, where the funds were being held, refused to release the money until it was decided by court who it should be given to.
A letter from Hyderabad’s finance minister to the commissioner at the time said they would have been ‘grateful for the transfer, in view of the situation in Hyderabad’.
Pakistan had argued that the money should be given to them in order to procure arms, but the court determined it had right to rule, due to the fact that the money had been deposited in a British account.
The nizam was an absolute monarch who ruled between 1911 and 1948 when it was pre-independent of India.
A lawyer for one of the grandsons told the BBC that the family is pleased with the long awaited judgement.
Paul Hewitt said: ‘The court today made it clear that it did not think the money was handed to Pakistan outright. There is overwhelming evidence that Pakistan only held the money as a trustee and it actually belonged to the Nizam.’
The case had begun when Mr Hewitt’s client was a child and has only just been resolved now that he is in his 80s.
He added: ‘The High Court has rightly rejected Pakistan’s claim. The family has long awaited this judgement.’
In a press statement, India’s foreign ministry also welcome the verdict.
Pakistan could yet still seek an appeal. If this is not done the money will go to the state of India and Nizam’s grandson.