New Delhi: In a significant ruling involving the erstwhile royal family of Kapurthala, the Supreme Court has held that the private properties declared by former princely rulers after merger with the Indian Union would devolve according to personal succession laws and not by the rule of male lineal primogeniture.
A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and S.V.N. Bhatti set aside concurrent findings of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had upheld the claim of Brigadier Sukhjit Singh (retd) that the disputed properties devolved exclusively upon him under the customary rule of primogeniture applicable to princely states.
The dispute arose between two branches of the erstwhile Kapurthala royal family — one led by Brigadier Singh (retd), recognised by the Centre as the ruler of Kapurthala, and the other by his estranged wife Gita Devi and their children, who had sought partition of several family properties claiming them to be ancestral coparcenary assets.
Allowing the appeal filed by the heirs of Gita Devi, the apex court held that though succession to the “Gaddi” (throne) continued to be governed by the rule of primogeniture even after accession, the same principle did not apply to private properties declared by the ruler under the merger covenant.
“The covenant preserved the rule of primogeniture only in respect of succession to the Gaddi (throne) but in no way guaranteed this in respect of the private personal properties of the Maharaja,” the Justice Mithal-led Bench ruled.
It ruled that once the merger agreements were signed and sovereignty ceased, the rulers became ordinary citizens, though with certain privileges such as privy purses and ceremonial recognition. Their declared private properties, therefore, became subject to ordinary personal succession laws.
“The said properties were treated as the ordinary property of a private citizen and were even subject to taxation and acquisition in the ordinary way,” the bench said.
Referring to the covenant signed in 1948 for the formation of the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), the Supreme Court observed that Article XIV protected succession according to custom only to the “Gaddi” and personal dignities of the ruler, whereas Article XII separately recognised ownership over private properties declared by the ruler.
The judgment also relied on a series of earlier Constitution Bench and three-judge Bench rulings, including the “Travancore case”, the “Rampur case”, and the Faridkot royal property dispute, to reiterate that succession to private properties of former rulers cannot automatically follow the rule of primogeniture.
“The succession to such private ancestral properties must be in accordance with the personal law of the ruler and not as per any custom or rule of primogeniture,” it held.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court declared the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s conclusion that the rule of primogeniture governed succession to the disputed properties as “illegal and unsustainable in law”.
(IANS)
