Nizam’s descendants to get £35m as UK court rules in India’s favour
The high court of England and Wales on Wednesday upheld the claim of India and two grandsons of the late 7th Nizam of Hyderabad to £35 million held in a London bank account while rejecting Pakistan’s assertion the funds should be handed over to it.
The historic case has gone through several twists, with India and the Nizam’s descendants (Mukarram Jah and Muffakham Jah) on the same side against Pakistan, which claimed the funds on the ground that it was payment for supplying arms to Hyderabad state during India’s annexation in 1948.
The Nizam had sent £1 million to a London bank in 1948, and the funds now held by the National Westminster (NatWest) Bank are estimated to be worth at least £35 million.
The Nizam transferred the £1 million to the then Pakistani envoy in London, Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, in September 1948 for safe-keeping, and he agreed “to keep the amount mentioned by you in my name in trust”, according to letters between the then Pakistan high commissioner and the Nizam’s representative in Hyderabad.
The 166-page judgment by Justice Marcus Smith set out the history of the dispute, from India’s “Operation Polo” to annex Hyderabad, and subsequent developments, that include the Nizam assigning the claim to the money in London to the Indian president in 1965.
The judge said: “Although the Government of Hyderabad was involved in the purchase of weapons in order to resist what Nizam VII saw as attempts by India forcibly to annex Hyderabad...I do not consider that the transfer (of £1 million) had anything to do with the purchase of weapons or the compensation of Pakistan (in any way) for the purchase of weapons.”
The ruling added that it “is appropriate to record that the Nizam’s successor in title can be no-one other than the Princes or India…I have seen no hint of the possibility of any further claimant to the Fund, beyond the Princes and India”.
“In these circumstances, Nizam VII was beneficially entitled to the Fund and those claiming in right of Nizam VII – the Princes and India – are entitled to have the sum paid out to their order.
I will leave it to the parties to frame an appropriate form of order for my approval.”