NAGPUR: It may be a little too late in the day. But the scions of the Nagpur’s erstwhile royal Bhonsle family have joined hands to save the last of the family’s heirlooms and treasure from going under the hammer on June 17.
Burying the hatchet over the property in possession of the court of wards here, the Sr. Bhonsle family’s legal heirs are making a last-ditch effort to regain it by paying its market price to clear off the accumulated tax.
The inventory with the court of wards is worth a few crore rupees — the rest has already been auctioned. Government sources said the accumulated tax was to the tune of Rs1.5 crore.
The government has auctioned the royal family’s hotly disputed movable and immovable property twice in the past to clear off the wealth tax, following an order from a civil court here.
The last thing to be auctioned was the Sonegaon tank, one of the city’s important water bodies. This deal, too, is riddled with disputes, officials said.
The Bhonsles’ disputed excess movable and immovable property was shifted to the court of wards in 1925. But on a petition filed by the income tax department regarding non-payment of tax on the income from their property, a civil court had directed the government to auction the royal property in possession of the court of wards to pay the accumulated taxes. The first auction, according to the Bhonsle family sources, was held in 1972 and the second in 1980.
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