DELHI: As wills go, it was one worth fighting over. For more than two decades, lawyers in the north-western Indian city of Chandigarh have battled over an Indian noble's legacy worth more than £2bn.
Now, a knockout punch may finally have been landed and the Maharajah of Faridkot’s estate — complete with 300-year-old forts, a fleet of vintage Rolls-Royce cars, jewellery, a hugely valuable chunk of real estate in the nation's capital, Delhi, and even an aerodrome — will revert to his daughters. His will, made seven years before his death in 1989, has been found to have been “forged” by the top state court.
Such disputes are common in India, where a succession of empires, mass migrations and chaotic politics have left a tangle of claims to property, but few involve such colossal sums.
There has been no public comment from the two elderly women who will inherit the estate — and join India's club of billionaires. They enter the list of the booming economy's wealthiest people at joint 33rd. If their fortunes are counted as one, the sisters would take 20th place.
The will of their father, Sir Harinder Singh Brar, the last Maharajah of Faridkot, left everything to a trust to be run by his servants and lawyers when he died in 1989. His eldest daughter was disinherited on the grounds she had married against his wishes. The other was given a stipend of just 1,200 rupees a month — about £13.50 today. The maharajah, who had inherited the title in 1918, also left nothing to his mother or wife.
The legacy immediately aroused suspicions and last week a judge declared that it had been “forged and fabricated”.
Local press reports quoted the heiresses’ lawyer, Vikram Jain, as saying that the will was now considered illegal and thus “void”.
Lawyers for the trust said they would contest the decision.
“The will was real and it was not forged. The trust, after going through the order in detail, could challenge it in an upper court,” counsel for the trust, Ranjit Singh, said.
Little is known about the two new aristocrats. One has been reported as living in the Punjab province near Faridkot while the other lives in the eastern city of Kolkata or, possibly, abroad. A third daughter died more than a decade ago.
Though the Faridkot fortune is undoubtedly substantial, it is less impressive in comparison with those of India’s most wealthy. According to Forbes, software tycoon Azim Premji is worth $12.2bn (£8bn) and the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal is worth $16bn. The fortune of industrialist Mukesh Ambani is calculated at more than $20bn, 10 times the Faridkot inheritance.
By arrangement with the Guardian
