E-Paper
{ ₹20,000cr Faridkot royal property dispute} Daughter files plea in court against police move to cancel will forgery FIR
The Faridkot royal property dispute has on for long; in the latest, the only surviving daughter has moved court against the police move to cancel FIR in which 23 members and employees of the Mahrawal Khewaji Trust were accused of forging the Maharaja’s will.
Faridkot In a dispute over royal property valued at ₹20,000 crore, the only surviving daughter, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, 87, of the last ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Faridkot has filled an application in the court of chief judicial magistrate (CJM) on Thursday. In her plea, she has opposed the cancellation report that the police have filed on a First Information Report (FIR) in which 23 members and employees of the Mahrawal Khewaji Trust were accused of forging the Maharaja’s will.
This FIR was lodged in August 2020, after the Punjab and Haryana high court ruled that the will of the last ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Faridkot, Harinder Singh Brar, was forged in favour of the Maharwal Khewaji Trust in 1982. Later, a case of fraud was registered against the 23 trust members, including chairman Jai Chand Mehtab, who is also the son of her elder sister, Deepinder Kaur, and a prince of the erstwhile royal family of West Bengal.
The erstwhile ruler’s granddaughter and Mehtab’s sister, Nisha D Kher, who is the vice-chairperson of the trust, was also named in the FIR. The trust has challenged the high court order in the Supreme Court, where it is pending.
About a year after the registration of the FIR, the police had approached the court on June 2 and sought the cancellation of the FIR.
In her affidavit through her daughter in the CJM’s court, Amrit, has opposed the cancellation report filled by the police claiming that FIR had been registered on true and real facts and on the findings of the high court regarding forgery of Maharaja’s will and the plundering of royal estate. She also prays in her plea that the cancellation report moved by Faridkot police may be ordered to be rejected and investigation agency directed for re-investigation in view of the findings of the Punjab and Haryana high court judgment.
The high court had upheld a Chandigarh court’s order last year, awarding majority share in the ₹20,000-crore property of Brar to his two daughters — Amrit Kaur and Deepinder Kaur. The court held that descendents of Manjit Inder Singh, the last ruler’s brother, would get their mother Mohinder Kaur’s share.
On the will at the centre of the dispute, the court had observed that the trustees conspired to create the will to usurp the property. “The will is proved to be forged, fictitious, fabricated and shrouded with suspicious circumstances,” the court order said.
