What happened: A 68 year old Kolkata woman claims she is the successor to the Mughal dynasty and the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. Sultana Begum has now lodged a case in the court demanding the ownership of the 17-century Red Fort in New Delhi. At the same time, she claims to have her marriage records with Bahadur Shah Zafar’s great-grandson, Mirza Mohammad Bedar. Details: Whereas, she lives in a two-room hut in the slums of Kolkata as she survives on a pension. After the death of her husband, she was forced to live in poverty and Al Jazeera quoted her as she asked, “Can you imagine that the descendant of the emperors who built the Taj Mahal now lives in desperate poverty?” However, Sultana Begum now hopes that she will get her royalty and Al Jazeera quotes her, “When something belongs to someone, it should be returned.”
What else: On the other hand, the Delhi High Court has rejected her petition and called it a “waste of time.” Delhi High Court has also said that Sultana Begum’s lawyer has failed to provide sufficient justifications, but Sultana’s lawyer stated, “She has decided to file a plea before a higher bench of the court challenging the order.”