Rajkot royal family member moves court over property dispute
(Sourced from PTI)
A bitter dispute has broken out in the Rajkot royal family of Gujarat over the ancestral property worth hundreds of crores with one of the members moving city civil court. Ambalika Devi, sister of Mandhatasinh Jadeja, who is the 17th king of the erstwhile princely state of Rajkot, has filed a suit against the release deed and the will of her father Manoharsinh Jadeja.
She has challenged the release deed which construed that she had relinquished her right on inheritance property. "She lives in Jhansi and has claimed that she was made to sign a release deed by her brother Mandhatasinh Jadeja in 2019 when she visited Rajkot following her father's death, by keeping her in the dark and ill-informed," her lawyer Ketan Sindhava said on Wednesday.
"She has challenged the 2013 will of her father, that her brother produced before deputy collector in 2019 to allegedly mutate the entry in revenue records, and has sought direction from the court to declare the release deed as null and void," Sindhava said.
"Based on the will and the release deed, which are under challenge, the petitioner's brother had allegedly initiated mutation entry in the revenue department to make him the sole owner of the property," the lawyer said. "The will of her father Manoharsinh Jadeja, the former finance minister (of Gujarat), is unregistered. The opposing party even tried to tamper with the will," he claimed.
On Tuesday, Rajkot Deputy Collector Charansinh Gohil rejected mutation entry on the basis of the objection raised by Ambalika. As per Sindhava, Gohil said the order of the court will be binding on both parties. However, Mandhatasinh's advocate Nirav Doshi claimed his client's sister was paid Rs. 1.5 crore as per the will which she had accepted in presence of her husband and sons.
"She had signed a registered release deed stating that she will have no right on the ancestral property. Her husband and two sons are also witnesses to the deed that she signed in 2019," Doshi claimed.
"We have produced all the documentary evidence in the court, and the matter is next likely to come up for hearing in the court of additional senior civil judge LD Wagh on August 31," he said. Notably, Mandhatasinh was last year crowned as the 17th king of the erstwhile princely state of Rajkot. He runs a chain of heritage hotels.
