Indian princess's grandchildren win legal battle to inherit assets
Row over Gayatri Devi’s estate after her death in 2009 ends with supreme court awarding assets of around £200m to Devraj Singh and Lalitya Kumari
The grandchildren of a glamorous Indian aristocrat who personified a lost era of wealth and privilege have won a lengthy legal battle to inherit her assets, following her death in 2009.
Gayatri Devi was one of the most celebrated beauties of the last century, mixing traditional palace life in the royal city of Jaipur with private planes, cocktail parties and shopping trips to London.
Her death triggered an acrimonious showdown over a fortune that Indian media estimated at between $200m and $400m (£131m-£262m), including two spectacular Jaipur palaces that now operate as luxury hotels.
She was the third of the maharajah of Jaipur’s three concurrent wives and when he died on the polo field, the title passed to the son of his first wife.
Gayatri Devi’s only son, Jagat Singh, died in 1997 and her own death 12 years later triggered a showdown between her grandchildren, Devraj Singh and Lalitya Kumari, and other descendants of the former maharajah.
On Wednesday, the supreme court upheld an earlier judgment by a lower court in favour of the pair, saying they had been deprived of their rightful share in the Jai Mahal and Rambagh palaces and other companies.
“All these years my sister and I have only been asking for our father’s shares in the family company and nothing beyond that,” said Singh in a statement after the ruling.
“Finally, I am one step further to be able to do my various duties towards my ancestral land.”
Different branches of the family still exert control over the Jaipur estate, which remained partially intact long after the system of “princely states” was dismantled following independence from Britain in 1947.
Devi, the matriarch of the clan, was once named as one of the most beautiful women on earth by fashion magazine Vogue. She was accorded a royal funeral in Jaipur following her death at the age of 90.
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