Real estate experts and accountants put the total worth of the properties and assets at over Rs.20,000 crore. The Mani Majra fort, which is over 350 years old, is not in a very good condition. The erstwhile ruler was allowed to keep these properties after the country's independence in August 1947.
The legal battle for the assets started in 1992 after the ex-maharaja's daughter Amrit Kaur filed a case in a court in Chandigarh. Following a 21-year-old legal battle, the court of the chief judicial magistrate Rajnish Kumar, ordered Thursday that the 1981 will, purportedly drawn up by the maharaja, was "forged and fabricated".
With the court judgment, Amrit Kaur and her Kolkata-based sister Deepinder Kaur will inherit the properties and assets of the erstwhile ruler. Their third sister, Maheepinder Kaur, who was not married, died under mysterious circumstances in Shimla in 2001.
