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Case file s761 · India and South Asia · 1966
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1966
Map of India, marked on the globe
Map of India. Ssolbergj (talk). CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
6 March 1966 (Nawab Raza Ali Khan)
Place
Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Field
Royalty (Rampur State) · Royalty and nobility on the timeline
Legal tradition
Muslim personal law (Shariat Application Act, 1937) against the rule of primogeniture for the gaddi (throne) · Islamic law
Historical event
Merger of the princely states (1949) and abolition of privy purses (1971)
India and South AsiaDied without a willSeized by the statePostwarSouth AsiaIndia
AI illustration: The Khas Bagh palace of the Nawabs of Rampur, 1966
Illustration made with AI for celebrity.estate.

The Nawab of Rampur's eldest son took all his private property in 1966; after 53 years the Supreme Court split it among 16 heirs

Nawab Raza Ali Khan signed Rampur over to India on 15 May 1949. He kept a tax-free privy purse of 7 lakh rupees and his private properties, which he listed in orders of 31 May and 27 June 1949. He died intestate on 6 March 1966. The President recognised his eldest son, Murtaza Ali Khan, as ruler, and a certificate of 1 April 1966 named him sole successor to all private property. His second son and his daughters challenged it, and the Delhi High Court quashed the certificate on 18 December 1969. A granddaughter sued for partition in 1970 and again on 7 January 1972. The Allahabad High Court dismissed the suit on 31 July 1996, holding that primogeniture applied. On 31 July 2019 the Supreme Court reversed it. Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose held that the private property passed under personal law and ordered a division. Murtaza Ali Khan had died during the case. When the Khasbagh Palace strongroom was opened in August 2019, its lockers were empty. On 6 December 2021 the Rampur District Judge divided the estate, valued at over Rs 2,650 crore, among 16 heirs under Shariat rules. One heir's 7 percent share went to the Custodian of Enemy Property because she is a Pakistani national.

What the law took from it

An heir's certificate issued by a government does not survive a court ruling that the property was private all along.

Record vs. record

The claimants are counted as 16 (Lawbeat, district court) and 18 (IANS, 2020):

lawbeat.inmorungexpress.com
Sources
  1. api.sci.gov.inGovernment record
  2. morungexpress.comPress
  3. lawbeat.inPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “The Nawab of Rampur's eldest son took all his private property in 1966; after 53 years the Supreme Court split it among 16 heirs,” story s761, https://www.celebrity.estate/rampur-1966, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

India and South AsiaDied without a willSeized by the statePostwarSouth AsiaIslamic lawIndia