The Supreme Court on May 5, 2025, rejected the plea of Sultana Begum who identifies herself as the widow of a great-grandson of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II for holding the Red Fort. A bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar held the petition to be “misconceived” and “meritless” and declined to entertain it.
Sultana Begum alleged that she was the wife of Mirza Mohammed Bedar Bakht, who was a great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar. She alleged to have inherited Red Fort from her ancestor and alleged the Government of India is an “illegal occupant.” She claimed either possession of Red Fort or compensation by the Government of India for illegal occupation since 1857.
Responding to the petition, the Chief Justice Khanna sarcastically remarked, “Why the Red Fort only? Why not Fatehpur Sikri? Why leave them out?”, and pointed out they deemed the petition to be misconceived, and accordingly rejected it. The court even rejected the plea for withdrawing the plea made by the counsel for the petitioner.
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This was not the first occasion when this specific petition had been rejected. On 20 December 2021, a single judge bench of the Delhi High Court rejected the petition on the ground of undue delay. On 13 December 2024, the division bench of the Delhi High Court confirmed the ruling of the single judge. The top court observed that the petition was moved almost 150 years after the reported illegal occupation of the Red Fort. The top court rebuked the petitioner’s singular concentration on the Red Fort and the other intriguing erstwhile-Mughal monuments of Delhi as if the Red Fort alone mattered. The petition was based on the contention that after the First War of Independence, the British East India Company illegally appropriated the Red Fort from the Mughal family in 1857. The learned judges rejected the petition as untenable as it had no merit both procedurally and on substance.
The judgment of the Supreme Court ended this prolonged and circuitous legal drama. The court’s observations were bitterly sarcastic, and their contemptuous tone reflected their perception regarding claims in connection with historic possession of matters like monuments. The case also demonstrated the intricacies of a legal controversy like this regarding historic monuments, along with the necessity to follow relevant timelines while seeking a legal redress.
