In a setback to Pakistan, a U.K. court has directed it to pay £1,50,000 to India as legal fees in the 67-year-old Hyderabad funds case involving the Nizam’s money while terming Pakistan’s behaviour “unreasonable.”
Holding that Pakistan had no “sovereign immunity” in the case, the judge ordered the Pakistan High Commissioner here to pay the legal costs incurred by the other respondents in the case relating to the ‘Hyderabad Funds’ which was currently valued at £35 million.
It is understood that the legal costs of the respondents — the Government of India, the National Westminster Bank & the Nizam’s heirs Mukkaram Jah & Muffakham Jah — are approximately £4,00,000. Of this, India has been paid £1,50,000, the National Westminster Bank £1,32,000 and the Nizam’s heirs about £60,000 each respectively.
The immunity waiver under the verdict, which has opened the doors for India to recover the frozen funds through legal process, is irrevocable. This case, known as the ‘Hyderabad funds case’, relates to transfer of £1,007,940 and 9 shillings to a London bank account in the name of the High Commissioner in the U.K. for the then newly formed state of Pakistan, Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, at the Westminster Bank (now Natwest) in 1948.
The money was transferred by an agent who appeared to be acting on behalf of the absolute ruler of one of the largest and richest of the Indian princely states, the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad.
