Properties worth an estimated Rs 15,000 crore, owned by the Pataudi family and partially linked to actor Saif Ali Khan, could be taken over by the government under the Enemy Property Act, 1968. In a significant ruling, the Madhya Pradesh High Court lifted the stay imposed on these properties in 2015, NDTV reported. Some of the properties including in the ruling are Saif’s childhood home Flag Staff House, the Noor-Us-Sabah Palace, Dar-Us-Salam, Bungalow of Habibi, Ahmedabad Palace, Kohefiza Property, among others. The Enemy Property Act allows the government to seize control of properties belonging to persons who migrated to Pakistan after the Partition.
The Nawab of Bhopal, Hamidullah Khan, had three daughters. One of them migrated to Pakistan, while another stayed in India. Saif is the grandson of the woman who remained in India, but the government is citing the migrant daughter as grounds to take control of the properties. Saif has often spoken about reclaiming the family’s Pataudi Palace, after it was leased out to a hotel chain by his father, the late Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi.
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“My father leased it out and Francis (Wacziarg) and Aman (Nath), who ran a hotel there took good care of the property. My mother (Sharmila Tagore) has a cottage there and she was always very comfortable,” Saif had said. “It was a fair financial arrangement and contrary to reports, I did not have to buy it back because I already owned it,” Saif said in an interview with Bollywood Hungama in 2021.
Saif now uses the palace as a summer home, and often leases it out to film productions for the purpose of shooting. In a recent interview with Housing.com, his sister Soha shared some more insights about the palace’s history, and said that Saif is the one who owns it. Soha revealed that her grandmother, Sajida Sultan, was the begum of Bhopal, and her grandfather was the nawab of Pataudi. He loved her for many years but hadn’t been allowed to marry her by her father. “The Pataudi Palace was built to impress his father-in-law.” Soha added, “He built it in 1935 so that they could get married. He wanted to impress his father-in-law but halfway through building it, he ran out of money! So when you go there, you will see there are lots of carpets and some of them have marble floors underneath, but a lot of them have just normal cement, because he ran out of money.”
Sharmila Tagore takes care of the Pataudi Palace. (Photo: Karan Johar/ Instagram/Housing.com)
She also revealed that her mother, Sharmila Tagore, is the one who handles all the accounts. “My mother sits with her hisaab-kitaab; she knows daily expenditure and monthly expenditure. For example, we whitewash Pataudi, it’s not painted because it’s a lot less expensive. And we haven’t bought anything new for a long time. It’s the architecture of the place that’s most inviting; it’s not the things, it’s not the objects,” she said.
Saif was recently injured during a break-in at his Mumbai residence. He reportedly fended off an intruder who had threatened his family. He was rushed to hospital, where he underwent surgery in his back. He was discharged on Tuesday.
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