The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by a woman, claiming to be a descendant of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and seeking possession of the Red Fort by virtue of her linage.
Terming the petition as totally misconceived, the Bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar rejected the plea filed by one Sultana Begum.
The Bench asked the petitioner sarcastically why she sought the possession of only the Red Fort and not Fatehpur Sikri & Agra Fort too.
The Counsel representing the petitioner apprised the Bench that the Delhi High Court dismissed the petition on the grounds of delay and not on merits.
He requested the top court of the country to grant the same concession, however, the Bench rejected his request and proceeded to dismiss the matter on merits.
In December last year, the Delhi High Court had dismissed Sultana Begum’s petition on the grounds that it was barred by limitation as there was a delay of two-and-a-half years in filing the plea after it was dismissed by a single-judge Bench.
The Bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela noted that the appeal was filed after a delay of over 900 days since the single-judge order was passed.
The petitioner first approached the High Court in 2021 claiming that she was the widow of the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar II.
Begum argued that her family had been deprived of their property by the British East India Company following the first war of Independence in 1857, after which Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled from the country and the possession of the Red Fort was taken away from the Mughals.
Claiming that the Government of India was currently illegally occupying her property, Begum sought both possession of the Red Fort, as well as compensation from the Centre.
In December 2021, a single-judge Bench of the High Court dismissed her plea on the grounds that the cause of action arose more than 164 years ago.
The single-judge Bench noted that 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 was an admitted position that the petitioner’s predecessors were always aware of this position.
The petitioner challenged this order before the Division Bench of the High Court, which dismissed her plea in December 2024.
She then moved the Apex Court.