Congress leader and scion of erstwhile Gwalior state Jyotiraditya Scindia has agreed to settle his property disputes with his aunts, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Sports Minister Yashodhara Raje after court asked them to explore an out-of-court settlement.
Scindia’s counsel presented an application yesterday saying that his client is ready for an out-of-court settlement as per the wishes of Additional Sessions Judge Sachin Sharma. He had filed a suit in Gwalior court 26 years ago, arguing that as per succession rules of Gwalior state, he is the heir to the entire property.
During a hearing last month, Sharma had asked the feuding parties to reach an amicable solution out of the court to “set an example for the masses’’. Last week, Yashodhara Raje shared the dais with Scindia at Shivpuri during the inauguration of a statue of late Madhavrao Scindia.
Presenting the application before court, Scindia’s counsel said that his client was ready for a mutual settlement earlier, too. Scindia had even deposited the fee for a mediator appointed by the court but no progress was made in the case.
On the contrary, Vasundhara Raje's advocate, in a separate application, said that the court should first take a decision on appointing a new ‘court commissioner’ as mediator as the previous mediator appointed by the court had died. The court had fixed November 9 as the next date for the hearing.
Scindia and his two aunts are locked in several property disputes spread across the country. Scindia's grandmother Rajamata Scindia (one of the founder members of the BJP) was not on good terms with her son Madhavrao. So, she declared in her will that all her property should go to her daughters instead of her son, leading to the legal tiff between Scindia and his aunts.
The feud in the family was so bitter that Madhavrao even had to pay a symbolic rent to live in the Jai Vilas Palace built by his grandfather in 1874.
The feud took an ugly turn in 1990, when a young Scindia filed a petition prohibiting his father and grandmother from selling the ancestral properties. According to a rough estimate, the properties of the Scindias are worth over Rs one lakh crore.
Family sources say among the properties in litigation are huge palaces and buildings in Gwalior, the Vasundhara building on Mumbai's Peddar Road, the 32-acre Scindia Villa in prime Sarojini Nagar area of Delhi and Padma Vilas Palace in Pune. Apart from these, the family owns Madhav Vilas Palace and George Castle in Shivpuri, Kaliadeh Palace in Ujjain, Gwalior House on Rajpur Road in Delhi, Scindia Ghat in Varanasi and Vithoba Temple in Goa. Another prominent property is the Usha Kiran Palace in Gwalior, which has been converted into a heritage hotel. It is presently managed by the Taj group and is the only star hotel in the city.