Today, the Delhi High Court rejected a petition filed by a woman asserting her descent from the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and claiming ownership of the Red Fort based on her lineage.

A bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela dismissed Sultana Begum's appeal, citing that it was time-barred due to a delay of two and a half years in filing the plea after its dismissal by a single judge of the High Court.

"The appeal is dismissed being for barred by limitation," the Court observed.

The Court addressed an application seeking condonation of a delay of over 900 days in filing the appeal against the single-judge order. Sultana Begum attributed the delay to her illness and the demise of her daughter. However, the Bench declined to entertain the plea. 

Case Brief

Begum had initially approached the High Court in 2021, asserting that she was the widow of the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar II.

She contended that her family was deprived of its property by the British East India Company following the First War of Independence in 1857, during which Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled, and the Red Fort was seized from the Mughals. 

Claiming that the Government of India now holds the Red Fort under "illegal occupation," Begum sought its possession and compensation for the alleged unauthorized use of the property.

“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 is an admitted position that the petitioner’s predecessors were always aware of this position,” the single-judge had noted. 

Subsequently, she filed the present appeal, which was dismissed today on the grounds of excessive delay.