Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of the princely state of Hyderabad

LONDON: The high commission of India in London has finally received millions of pounds that had been stuck in a British bank account due to a 70-year-old legal dispute over funds belonging to the Nizam of Hyderabad .

Indian government officials in London told TOI on Thursday that the UK high commission has received its share of the £35 million (Rs 325 crore) stuck in a National Westminster bank account since September 20, 1948, that Pakistan had also laid a claim to.

Last October, the high court ruled in favour of India and Mukarram Jah, the titular 8th Nizam of Hyderabad, and his younger brother, Muffakham Jah, in the case they had been fighting against Pakistan for six years in the London high court. The bank had already transferred the money to court.

Pakistan has also paid the Indian government £2.8 million (Rs 26 crore) as 65% 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,” an Indian diplomat in London told TOI.

Lawyers representing the titular 8th Nizam confirmed to TOI their client had received his share of the fund and 65% of his legal costs too. India’s share of the £35 million is believed to be a significant sum, running into millions of pounds. It will now be remitted to New Delhi.

The more than 70-yearold dispute centred on £1 million and one guinea that on September 20, 1948 was transferred from a government of Hyderabad bank account by Moin Nawaz Jung, then finance minister of the princely Hyderabad State, to a bank account in London held by Pakistan’s then high commissioner to the UK, Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, during the Indian annexation of the state of Hyderabad. It has subsquently grown to £35 million. India contended its claim on the funds saying that in 1965 the Nizam had assigned the amount to India.

