Nizam fund

1965 “assigning” the President of India the claim to the money in London.

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, and although the Second Account was used to pay for some of these weapons, I do not consider that the Transfer had anything to do with the purchase of weapons or the compensation of Pakistan (in any way) for the purchase of weapons”.

“(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”.

Paul Hewitt, partner in law firm Withers LLP, who acted for the Nizam VIII since Pakistan issued proceedings in 2013, said: “We are delighted that today’s judgment recognises…the VIII Nizam’s rights to funds which have been in dispute since 1948”.

“Mr Justice Smith’s judgment covers a complex historical and legal set of issues, interpreting facts and events that occurred 70 years ago to establish that the funds, which now amount to £35 million, were always held in trust for our client’s grandfather, the VII Nizam”.

“Our client was still a child when the dispute first arose and is now in his 80s. It is a great relief to see this dispute finally resolved in his lifetime.”

The judge rejected Pakistan’s claims of illegality on India’s part. Pakistan had alleged that India’s annexation of Hyderabad was unlawful and that it followed that India and the princes should be barred from any claim to the fund.

India argued that the question of whether India’s annexation of Hyderabad was lawful was irrelevant to the question of ownership of the fund. The judge concluded that India’s submission was wellfounded, and that even if there were illegality of the nature alleged by Pakistan (the judge has not reached any findings on that issue), any such illegality would in any case be irrelevant to the claim.

Nawab Najaf Ali Khan, grandson of the seventh Nizam, welcomed the judgment.

“The High Court has rightly rejected Pakistan’s claim in favour of India, and the descendants of H.E.H. The Nizam VII of Hyderabad. The family has long awaited this judgement,” Khan, who is also president of Nizam Family Welfare Association, told Hindustan Times. negotiating a trade deal to end current and outstanding issues going back decades. They have also sought to manage competing interests regarding India’s traditional ties with Russia and Iran, one an arch-rival and the other a sworn enemy of the US.

Jaishankar, regarded as a strategic thinker and wellknown in US academia and policy circles, was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading thinktank, on the theme Preparing for a different era and his vision of changing world order.

He has had a series of thinktank events at which he spoke expansively on all aspects of international relations with India in the middle — the US, Europe, China, the Gulf and the neighbourhood.

Jaishankar said the postWorld War 2 global order stands eroded because of “disenchantment with globalisation, anger at mercantilism and an inability to accept changes”.

One of the key dimensions of the emerging world will be its multi-polarity, where “an India or a Brazil will demand a greater voice with a growing economy”. The other key dimensions of this order, driven by nationalistic and more transactional power centres that prefer a balance of power to collective security, will be the “proliferation of frenemies”, “allies who publicly turn on each other, or competitors who are compelled to make common cause on issues”.

India’s trilateral meetings with the US and Japan on one hand, and with Russia and China on the other, on the margins of the G-20 Summit in recent years, should be seen this context of a changing world of countries brought together by convergence, Jaishankar said.

India finds it “perfectly natural to engage a Chinese leader at Wuhan, the Russian one at Sochi and then go on to do the “2+2” meeting of foreign and defence ministers of the two sides.

New Delhi’s decisions regarding Kashmir must be considered against the backdrop of this emerging order, for which a different mindset is required, one in which issues “presumed to be intractable challenges will have to be addressed, not ducked”, he said.