Of royals and two decades of litigations

JAIPUR: For more than two decades the Jaipur royal family have been involved in litigations in various courts.The litigations are not confined to property disputes, but also allegations that the share percentage of one member was reduced allegedly using fraudulent means.
It was the late Jagat Singh, son of Rajmata Gayatri Devi, who initiated the legal dispute in the family in 1986 by moving a petition before the Delhi High Court seeking a share in the royal properties as a coparcener of Hindu United family (HUF).The case was against former Maharaja Brig Bhawani Singh who insisted that he was the sole inheritor of the royal properties by virtue of being the eldest son of the Maharaja under the law of primogeniture.
But when the former Maharaja refused to part with the properties and share it with other members of the royal family his step-brothers reduced his stake in the Rambagh palace Hotels Pvt Ltd.
Bahwani Singh, who held 18.82% shares in the company, which is the percentage of total paid up shares, to his surprise found that by 2005 his shares were reduced to a mere 3.29%, while the shares of step- brothers snowballed to unbelievable limits. After the death of Jagat Singh in 1997 his shares were transferred in the name of his mother the Rajmata.
"Before the death of Jagat Singh in 1997, apart from Bhawani's 18.82%, all the other three step- brothers ----Prithvi Raj, Jai Singh and Jagat Singh ----had 27.05% share each in their name. But even six years after the death of Jagat Singh the share percentage of each members in the company remained same. But the year 2004 saw Bhawani Singh shares suddenly reduced and from 18.82% it was reduced to 9.63% and Jagat Singh's shares were reduced from 27.06% to 13.85%" said DK Malhotra of Malhotra Associates, a Delhi-based law company, who are contesting the case of both Bhawani Singh and the children of Jagat Singh, who are his successors now.
Malhotra said surprisingly in 2004, while the share percentage of both Bhawani Singh and Jagat Singh were reduced a year prior to this (2003), Prithvi Raj introduced his son Vijit Singh as a director in the company and reduced his own stake in the company from 27.06% to 0.03%. It seems he has transferred 27.03% of his own share in the name of his only son Vijit Singh.
But the year 2004 saw Bhawani and Jagat losing their share percentage further considerably and Prithvi Raj losing further .02% of his share, but his son's shares snowballed from 27.03% in 2003 to a staggering 38.24% in 2004.
But the year 2005 brought more surprises to both Rajmata (who owned late Jagat's shares)and Bhawani Singh as Rajmata's shares were reduced from 13.85% to a mere 4.74%, while Bhawani had the n mortification to see his share percentage reduced further to only 3.29%, added Malhotra.
Malhotra said by 2005 the other step brothers shares were Prithvi Raj's 0.005%, while Jai Singh's share were 46% and VijitSingh's 45.96%.
Malhotra said both Bhawani Singh along with Devraj Singh and Lalitya Kumari as the successors of Jagat Singh have gone to the Company Law Board (CLB) with the plea that their shares were illegally and fraudulently reduced by the other members of the royal family without assigning valid reasons.