SC junks claim of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s heir to Red Fort

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea by Sultana Begum laying claim to the Red Fort alleged being rightful legal owner as the widow of Mirza Mohammed Bedar Bakht, the great-grandson of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Rejecting Sultana Begum’s plea, Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, heading a bench also comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar, chidingly observed, “Why only Red Fort? Why not Fatehpur Sikri? Why leave them also? Writ is completely misconceived. Dismissed.”

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Sultana Begum had approached the apex court against the Delhi High Court’s division bench’s December 13, 2024 order upholding the single judge’s decision dismissing her plea seeking the possession of the Red Fort.

On December 20, 2021, a single judge of the high court rejected Begum’s petition, observing that there was no justification for the “inordinate delay” of more than 150 years in asserting the alleged right over the Red Fort property.

Sultana Begum had contended that she was the rightful owner of the Red Fort, having inherited it from her ancestor Bahadur Shah Zafar II, and that the possession of the Red Fort by the government of India was illegal following the exile of the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar after the First War of Independence in 1857.

She had sought a direction to the Central government to hand over the possession of the Red Fort to her or alternatively award her adequate compensation, including arrears from 1857 onwards for the alleged illegal possession.

Sultana Begum had contended that the British had forcefully taken the possession of the Red Fort after the 1857 first war of independence, Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled to Yangon (then called Rangoon) and that the government of India had continued Fort’s illegal occupation post-independence.

Backing her claim to the Red Fort, Sultana Begum pointed out that her late husband Mirza Mohammed Bedar Bakht was recognised as a descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar and was granted a political pension. She married Bedar Bakht on August 15, 1965, and continued to receive a political pension after the death of her husband on May 22, 1980.

However, both the single judge and the division bench of the Delhi High Court had rejected her claim, holding that there was an unjustifiable delay of over a century and a half in asserting any alleged right over the Red Fort, and there was no subsisting legal entitlement.