Qutub Minar row: Delhi court reserves order on plea by `Agra royal family member`

A Delhi court on Tuesday reserved its order on the intervention application moved by a man claiming to be heir of a royal family in Agra and seeking ownership of Qutub Minar. Additional District Judge Dinesh Kumar of the Saket court will pronounce the order on September 17.

The intervention plea, moved through advocate ML Sharma, by Kunwar Mahendra Dhwaj Prasad Singh, who claims to be heir of the united province of Agra and sought the right over territories from Meerut to Agra, was a twist amidst the temple restoration row.

The plea contended that the applicant belongs to the Beswan Family and heir of Raja Rohini Raman Dhawaj Prasad Singh and descendants of Raja Nand Ram who had died in 1695. "When Aurangzeb became firmly established on the throne, Nand Ram submitted to the Emperor and was rewarded with the Khidmat zamindari, revenue management of Joar and Tochigarh," read the plea.

In 1947, during the time of Raja Rohini Raman Dhawaj Prasad Singh, British India and its provinces became free and independent, the plea stated. However, after the independence of India in 1947, the Indian government neither entered into any treaty, nor there was any accession, nor there was an agreement with the ruling family, the applicant argued.

"The Central government, state government of Delhi and state government of Uttar Pradesh without due process of law encroached upon the legal rights of the applicant and misused the power, allotted, allocated and death with the property of the applicant," it said further.

The main suit in the matter alleged that around 27 Hindu and Jain temples were desecrated and damaged in 1198 under the Slave Dynasty Emperor Qutub-ud-din-Aibak who constructed the said mosque in place of those temples. The temples were dismantled, desecrated, and damaged under the command of the Slave Dynasty Emperor, who raised some construction at the same very place and named it the Quwwat-Ul-Islam Mosque, as per the plea.