Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has recently disposed of a partition suit that was pending for 66 years, known as CS 7/1958, among the legal heirs of Nawab Moin-ud-Dowla Bahadur (son of Asman Jah Bahadur, 28th prime minister of Hyderabad and Tahniyath Ali Khan, daughter of the fifth Nizam) over the Matruka properties of the family, which includes several maktas like Raidurg and Shamshiguda.
The CS 7 suit led to multiple court cases and applications before the High Court and the Supreme Court.
A division bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice N.V. Shravan Kumar, disposed of the suit a week back by substantiating the orders issued by the High Court in 1970, which had directed drawing the final decree by confirming the proportionate shares to the daughters and sons of Moin-ud-Dowla in all the scheduled properties, excluding the 25 maktas of Scheduled A properties of Asman Jah.
The 25 maktas, including Raidurg, Shivarampally, Shamshiguda, Somajiguda, Balapur and others, are claimed by the revenue department and the land is attached to the government.
In the preliminary decree issued in 1959, it was clearly stated that if the 25 maktas were restored or released in favour of the Asman Jahi Paigah, the arrears of income, future income, compensation or sale proceeds derived from them shall be distributed among the legal heirs.
While the suit was pending, several third parties and the legal heirs of the Nawab filed applications in the pending partition deeds claiming the land, seeking possession and delivering possession of the lands mentioned in the 25 maktas.
The third parties claimed that some of the legal heirs had sold their share and submitted to the High Court a copy of the order of the commissioner of survey settlement– releasing makta land dated 30.12.1977.
No document has been filed to the extent of the release order pertaining to the land in the maktas. The court faulted their claims and wanted to know what they were doing till 2023, as the release order was issued in 1977. The court expressed doubts about the document and rejected the claims, since the land was not available physically.
The division bench, while concluding the litigation of CS 7/1958, observed that it went in respect of non-existing properties for 66 years and directed the registry to draft a final decree as per the orders issued in 1970, and to engross the same on stamp papers.
