NEW DELHI: A bemused Delhi high court Friday dismissed a plea by a woman claiming to be the widow of the great-grandson of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II and staking claim to Red Fort on account of being the legal heir.
“You have come 164 years too late,” a bench of acting Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela remarked, dismissing the appeal by Sultana Begum.
It was Begum’s second round of litigation. In Dec 2021, a single judge had first dismissed her plea seeking possession of Red Fort, taken illegally by East India Company.
On Friday, the bench pointed out that her appeal against the order of the single judge was also filed after a delay of over two-and-a-half years, which could not be condoned. Begum said she could not file the appeal owing to her bad health condition and the passing of her daughter.
“We find the explanation inadequate, considering that the delay is of more than two-and-a-half years. The petition was also dismissed (by the single judge) for being inordinately delayed by several decades. The application for condonation of delay is dismissed. Consequently, the appeal is also dismissed. It is barred by limitation,” the bench said.
Earlier, the single judge had said there was no justification for the inordinate delay in approaching the court after over 160 years.
“Even if the petitioner’s case were to be accepted that late Bahadur Shah Zafar II was illegally deprived of his property by the East India Company, as to how the writ petition would be maintainable after such an inordinate delay of over 164 years when it is an admitted position that the petitioner’s predecessors were always aware of this position,” the court had said.
The petition claimed the family was deprived of their property by the British following the First War of Independence in 1857, after which the emperor was exiled from the country and possession of Red Fort was forcefully taken away from the Mughals.
It argued that Begum was the owner of Red Fort as she inherited it from her ancestor Bahadur Shah Zafar II, who died on Nov 11, 1862 at age 82, and the Govt of India was an illegal occupant of the property. The petition sought a direction to Centre to hand over Red Fort to the petitioner or give adequate compensation, besides the compensation from 1857 to the present date for alleged illegal possession by govt.
