India gets its share of £35m in Nizam funds case

THE Indian High Commission in the UK has finally received millions of pounds after a seven-decade long legal dispute with Pakistan over funds belonging to the Nizam of Hyderabad.

The high commission has received its share of the £35m stuck in a National Westminster bank account since September 20, 1948, that Pakistan had also laid a claim to, The Times of India daily reported quoting the Indian government officials in the British capital.

Pakistan has also paid India £2.8m as 65 per cent of India's legal costs in fighting the case in the London high court, officials said.

The remaining legal costs that India is owed are still being negotiated.

"The news is that Pakistan has paid up," the Indian daily quoted an Indian diplomat in London as saying.

The legal experts representing the titular eighth Nizam stated that the descendants of Nizam had received his share of the fund and 65 per cent of his legal costs too.

The UK high court dismissed Pakistan’s claim over the sum and ruled favouring India and Mukarram Jah, the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad, and his younger brother.

India and members of the Nizam’s family had been fighting against Pakistan for six years in the London high court.

The bank had already transferred the money to the court.

The dispute revolved around £1,007,940 and nine shillings transferred in 1948 from the then Nizam of Hyderabad to the bank account of the high commissioner in Britain of the newly-formed state of Pakistan.

That amount has since grown into £35m as the Nizam’s descendants, supported by India, claimed it belonged to them and Pakistan counter-claimed that it was rightfully theirs.

India contended its claim on the sum stating that in 1965, the Nizam had assigned the sum to India during the Indian annexation of the state of Hyderabad.