The High Court of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, upholding the Indian government’s decision, has declared the ancestral property of Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan as enemy property, due to which there is a possibility of him losing ancestral property worth thousands of crores.
In 2014, the department overseeing enemy property had issued a notice declaring the Pataudi family’s properties in Bhopal as enemy property and announced their confiscation.
However, a year later, Saif Ali Khan obtained a stay order from the court against this notice, but now the Madhya Pradesh High Court, upholding the government’s decision, has declared his family’s ancestral property in Bhopal as enemy property.
These properties include the Flag Staff House, where Saif Ali Khan spent his childhood, along with Noor-us-Sabah Palace, Dar-us-Salam, Habibi ka Bungalow, Ahmedabad Palace, Koh-e-Fiza property, and others. After the decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Saif Ali Khan’s family may lose property worth 15 thousand crore Indian rupees.
Apart from this, the High Court has also sent back to the trial court the matter of giving the property of the last Nawab of Bhopal, Hamidullah Khan, to his daughter Sajida Sultan, and has ordered that it should be decided whether only Sajida Sultan and her children have rights over Nawab Hamidullah Khan’s properties, or if other heirs also have rights under Muslim personal law. The High Court has ordered the trial court to decide within a year.
What is the Enemy Property Act?
The Enemy Property Act allows the central government of India to claim ownership of the property of those individuals who migrated to Pakistan after Partition.
The last Nawab of Bhopal was Hamidullah Khan, who had three daughters. Nawab Hamidullah Khan’s eldest daughter, Abida Sultan, migrated to Pakistan in 1950, while his second daughter, Sajida Sultan, stayed in India and married Nawab Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and became the legal heir to these properties, and thus this property came to Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan as inheritance through Sajida Sultan.
According to media reports, the story took a new turn when the government built its case on the migration of Abida Sultan, after which the government declared these properties as ‘enemy property’.
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