NEW DELHI: A former Miss Turkey has won a maintenance and compensation package worth millions of rupees from her former husband, an Indian prince whose grandfather, the last ruling Nizam of Hyderabad, was once hailed as the richest man in the world.
After a protracted legal battle an Indian judge has ordered the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah, 73, who lives with his fifth wife in Turkey, to pay his divorced third wife Manolya Onur maintenance, house rent and mehr amounting to about £1.8m.
The judge also banned the prince from selling any of his palaces in Hyderabad, now a hub for India’s infotech revolution, until he had paid up. However, judges rejected Ms Onur’s request that her former husband should give their 15-year-old daughter Niloufer a palace in Hyderabad where the royal couple lived from the time they got married in 1990 until they were divorced four years later.
Much of the 4bn-rupee property has been converted into a public park. The former Miss Turkey, who lives with her daughter in Istanbul, is flying to Hyderabad this weekend to celebrate her victory in the 11-year-long court battle. “I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news,” she said to an Indian TV news channel.
“It was unjust that me and my daughter have had to suffer over the years, but finally I feel justice has been done.” Besides the one-off mehr compensation, Ms Onur will receive $10,000 (£5,500) in monthly maintenance and $5,000 as house rent, a pittance compared with the once fabulous wealth of the Nizam.
“It’s middle class, not something great or luxurious,” Ms Onur’s friend Scheherzade Jhaveri told a Hyderabad daily. “The rents are pretty high in Turkey, and Niloufer studies in an international school.”
The Nizam is expected to appeal, but the family court decision came as a humiliation for a dynasty that ruled the kingdom of Hyderabad for more than 200 years. The Nizam’s grandfather Osman Ali Khan was the only maharajah in British India who was accorded the title His Exalted Highness, a reward for contributing £25m to the British exchequer during the First World War.
The family had a fabulous jewellery collection, including the 184.75-carat Jacob Diamond. The hoard, valued at around 250bn rupees, was taken by the government in 1995 after the Nizam and his family were paid a tenth of its price, and is now on display at the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service
