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The Hyderabad city civil Court granted an interim injunction restraining Mukarram Jah, successor to the nizam (prime minister) of the erstwhile Hyderabad state, from spending any part of the Rs 100 million that he has received from the nizam's Supplemental Jewellery Trust (SJT).
The order was pronounced by city civil court's Chief Judge M E N Patrudu on Wednesday last acting on a petition filed by eight members of the erstwhile nizam's family against the move of the trustees to dissolve the Supplemental Jewellery Trust and giving away the corpus fund of Rs 100 million to Mukarram Jah.
Jah is the grandson of the seventh nizam late Mir Osman Ali Khan and the scion of the former Asaf Jahi dynasty.
The petitioners - Nawab Qudrat Jah, Mir Zamin Ali Khan, Mir Mehraj Ali Khan, Mir Firasath Ali Khan, Nawab Shahamath Ali Khan, Nusrath Ali Khan, Jaffar Ali Khan and Saqafath Ali Khan - grandsons or great-grandsons of the seventh nizam, contend that the trustees' action defeated the very purpose for which the trust was set up by Mir Osman Ali Khan more than 50 years ago.
The SJT's mandate was to extend financial assistance to family members of the seventh nizam who are in distress, after his death.
However, clause 10 of the Trust deed stipulates that when no one required assistance from the trust, the trustees can use their discretion to hand over the corpus fund to the eldest male member, designated as head of the Asaf Jahi family.
Recently, Jah had managed to resolve the long-standing dispute over sharing of the proceeds of the sale of the nizam's famed jewellery collection by distributing the money among various claimants in the nizam's family.
Following this, he invoked clause 10 and wrote to the SJT that 'since no member of the family requires any financial assistance', the trust be wound up and the money handed over to him.
The trustees sought legal opinion and were advised that there was merit in Mukarram Jah's claim.
Subsequently, the trustees retained Rs 30 million out of the Rs 130 million corpus and handed over Rs 100 million to Mukarram Jah's representatives.
The eight petitioners argue that disbursal of the proceeds from the sale of the jewellery and some other disputed money (totally amounting to over Rs 2 billion) did not mean that the SJT could be dissolved and its corpus given away to Mukarram Jah.
More reports on the legal wrangles in the Asaf Jahi dynasty
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