Rajkot Royal family bitter property dispute comes out in open as lawsuit filed in court

Property disputes in Royal families are nothing new. Previously also many stories of disputes have made headlines. This time a bitter dispute has broken out in the Rajkot royal family of Gujarat over the ancestral property worth hundreds of crores with the daughter of the family moving court.

The 17th king of the over 400-year-old erstwhile princely state of Rajkot, Mandhatasinh Jadeja's sister Ambalika Devi has filed a suit in the city civil court. As per her lawyer Ketan Sindhava, the lawsuit challenges the release deed and the will of her father Manoharsinh Jadeja. The deed construed that she had relinquished her right on inheritance property.

Ambalika Devi has alleged that in 2019, her brother Mandhatasinh Jadeja made her sign a release deed, without knowing the contents of it when she visited Rajkot from Jhansi following her father's demise. Ambalika Devi has now challenged the 2013 will of her father, that her brother produced before deputy collector in 2019. She has asking the court to declare the release deed as null and void, 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," lawyer Ketan Sindhava claimed. "The petitioner's brother had allegedly initiated mutation entry in the revenue department to make him the sole owner of the property," the lawyer added.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Rajkot Deputy Collector Charansinh Gohil rejected the mutation entry on the basis of the objection raised by Ambalika Devi. The deputy collector has cleared that the order of the civil court will be binding on both parties.

On the other hand, Mandhatasinh Jadeja's advocate Nirav Doshi claimed Ambalika Devi was paid Rs 1.5 crore as per the will which she had accepted in the presence of her husband and two sons. She had signed a registered release deed that she will have no right on the ancestral property which was duly signed by her, with her husband and two sons also as witnesses, the lawyer claimed.