GRANDCHILDREN OF INDIAN PRINCESS FINALLY INHERIT BETWEEN $200 M & $400 M

USPA NEWS - Rajmata Gayatri Devi, who died on July 29, 2009 aged 90, was an Indian princess of nenowned beauty, even described as one of the most beautiful women in the world. The fashion icon and former MP was the third wife of the Maharajah of Jaipur, in Northern India...

Rajmata Gayatri Devi, who died on July 29, 2009 aged 90, was an Indian princess of nenowned beauty, even described as one of the most beautiful women in the world. The fashion icon and former MP was the third wife of the Maharajah of Jaipur, in Northern India. He death sparked a court battle over her fortune, including palaces that now operates as luxury hotels. The local media estimated her fortune at between $200 million and $400 million.


She was known to have an irresistible magnetism and having among her friends the Kennedy Clan and Clark Gable. She was elected to the Indian Parliament in the 1960s with a record landslide of 192,909 votes out of 246,516 cast.

In 2013, the legal battle between the Jaipur royals over a part of the property of late Maharaj Jagat Singh, the biological son of late Rajmata Gayatri Devi, reached the Supreme Court. The Devraj Group and the Urvashi Devi Group were claiming rights over the shares held by Jagat Singh in the Jai Mahal Hotels Pvt Ltd incorporated in 1981.

The High Court had on August 19, 2010, declared both the groups to be legal heirs of Rajmata Gayatri Devi. In view of the property dispute between the royals, the board of directors of the company had decided not to transfer shares in the name of Jagat Singh to any person unless evidence by way of probate was produced.

The last ruling Maharajah, the polo-playing Man singh II, had four sons by three wives. His complex love life has left long-running legal battles between kin. However the death of Rajmata Gayatri Devi has marked a turning point for the family. Devraj Singh and Lalitya Kumari, children of Rajmata Gayatri Devi late son Jagat Singh, said they were the legal heirs to their grandmother's estate and should inherit family property including shares in luxury hotels, forts, paintings, crown jewels, tiger-hunting lodges and polo grounds. Although their father died without a will in london in 1997, their grandmother named them as heirs to her share of the royal fortune.

Rajmata Gayatri Devi step children were arguing that she made the will when she was elderly, frail and unable to talk properly, and that they should have a share of the state. On Wednesday, the Supreme court upheld an earlier judgement by the Delhi High Court in favour of the grandchildren saying that they had been deprived of their rightful share in the properties.

AFP quoting Devraj Singh after the ruling 'All these years my sister and I have only asking for our father's shares in the family companies and nothing beyond that.' Different branches of the family still exert control over the Jaipur estate, which remained partially intact long after the system of 'pricely estates' was dismantled following independence from Britan in 1947.