Delhi HC dismisses appeal by Bahadur Shah Zafar's descendant seeking Red Fort possession

New Delhi, Dec 16: The Delhi High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by the widow of the great-grandson of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II, seeking possession of the Red Fort in the capital on account of allegedly being the legal heir of the emperor.

A bench of acting Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela dismissed the appeal filed by Sultana Begum against the December 2021 decision of a HC single judge, noting the challenge was filed after a delay of over two-and-a-half years, which could not be condoned, a report by The Indian Express stated.

Begum, based in Howrah near Kolkata, said she had first moved a petition in the HC in 2021 “in the hope that the government will take note of me and help me out financially”.

Begum is the widow of Mirza Bedar Bukht, who was born in 1920 in then Rangoon, Burma, and is the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar II. Bukht, who died in 1980 in Kolkata, never earned a livelihood, she said.

“We were living in Taltala and subsisted on the pension he received as the legal heir of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, which was a few hundreds of rupees. In 1984, I shifted to Howrah with my children, trying to raise them single-handedly. After he died, I worked from time to time — running a tea stall, making bangles, but now age has caught up and I am confined to bed most of the time,” she according to report said.

According to Begum, Bukht was the last officially recognised direct male descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar, who initially received a pension from the British. He then received pension from the “Central government, the Nizam and the Hazrat Nizamuddin Trust”, her petition has stated.

Begum said she now lives off Rs 6,000 she receives as a pension from the Hazrat Nizamuddin Trust as being a legal heir of Bahadur Shah Zafar II.

Living in a hutment dwelling at Howrah, Begum said she is in dire need of money. “I have a son and five daughters. The eldest of my daughters died in 2022, delaying the filing of the appeal… My children remained uneducated, none of them could finish school and we continue to live in penury,” she added.

Begum had approached the Delhi HC in 2021 alleging that her family was deprived of the possession of the Red Fort because Bahadur Shah Zafar II — who was the Delhi emperor from 1836 to 1857 — was exiled and the Red Fort was illegally captured by the British on September 19, 1857. She claimed she legally inherited Red Fort from Bahadur Shah Zafar II and is also entitled to compensation for its alleged illegal occupation by the Union government.

The court of Justice Rekha Palli, on December 20, 2021, had dismissed the petition at the outset as not maintainable on the grounds of delay of 164 years.

The court had recorded, “… 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 report said.

In November this year, Begum appealed against the 2021 order before a division bench, submitting that “the Union government is having illegal possession of the Red Fort, which is the ancestral property of the appellant and the government is not willing to give compensation or possession of such property, which is a direct violation of petitioner’s fundamental right and constitutional right.”