From Devraj Singh and Lalitya Kumari, to Ambalika Devi and the Gaekwads, India’s feuding royals can’t seem to stay out of court
- India’s super-rich royals are constantly taking each other to court to squabble about who owns what, as their inherited wealth balloons ever higher
- The claims and counterclaims just keep coming over family fortunes that span palaces, estates, diamonds, chariots, rare paintings, golden cannons and more
Shuttled from court to court for decades, the 900-year-old royal family’s arbitration at long last came to a close this week when a state-appointed mediator brokered a truce among its squabbling descendants.
The combined wealth of the glamorous clan – who have graced the covers of international style magazines and are known for their jet-setting, lavish lifestyle – is around US$2.8 billion.
At stake in their dispute were two palaces turned into five-star hotels – the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, a 100-roomed edifice in Jaipur, Rajasthan, that was the family’s former abode; and Rambagh Palace, in the same city, which was the former summer palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur. The two properties together are currently estimated to be worth more than US$1 billion.
According to the terms of the settlement, Devraj Singh and his sister Lalitya Kumari – the grandchildren of Maharani Gayatri Devi who was the reigning queen of Jaipur from 1940 to 1949 – will get back the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel from their step uncles in return for foregoing their stake in Rambagh Palace.
Where there’s a will
In another contentious case involving Indian royals, Ambalika Devi – sister of Mandhatasinh Jadeja, the 17th “king” of the former princely state of Rajkot in India’s western Gujarat state – disputed the will of her father Manoharsinh Jadeja in court this September over an ancestral property worth US$3 billion. While Devi’s brothers claim that she has already been given a fair share of the property as per their deceased father’s will, she alleges the will was tampered with to whittle down her share.
Decades after they were stripped of their official role, dozens of descendants of India’s 500-odd royal families, which once enjoyed enormous political power and clout in their principalities, are now mired in a complex web of litigation over family property and heirlooms.
