The death of Gayatari Devi, the former Maharani of Jaipur who was once regarded as one of the world's most glamorous women, has triggered a battle over a £200 million fortune.
According to family sources, rival factions are waiting for the official period of mourning to end this weekend, when the details of the her will are expected to be released, before consulting their lawyers. The late Rajmata (or queen mother)'s estate includes a historic jewellery collection, opulent forts and palaces in her Rajasthan desert kingdom, a large shareholding in a number of Indian hotels, and a town house in Mayfair. A sprawling estate and country house close to her beloved Ascot, where Queen Elizabeth and Lord Mountbatten were once guests at her son's wedding, are believed to have been sold a few years earlier.
The Rajmata, who was friends with Jackie Onassis and took the Windsors on tiger hunting expeditions, had only recently settled a bitter dispute with her grandchildren over the will of her late son, Jagat Singh, the Raja of Isarda. She had produced a letter from him, alleged to be a forgery, in which he said his estranged children - Devraj and Lalitya - should not inherit any part of his estate. He had separated from their mother, a Thai princess, in an acrimonious divorce.
Gayatari Devi had also argued that her grandchildren could not own property in India because they held Thai and British passports. Their dispute was apparently settled in April when the Rajmata and her grandchildren struck a deal to split the estate equally.
Her one-third share was expected to pass to them upon her death, but there is now speculation that she may have left it to their uncle Prithviraj, another Jaipur royal. He is currently being sued by Devraj and Lalitya over their shareholding in the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, one of the world's most exclusive spas. After their playboy father's death in 1997, Gayatri Devi and Prithviraj, her son-in-law, initially accepted Devraj and Lalitya as the rightful heirs.
According to family sources, rival factions are waiting for the official period of mourning to end this weekend, when the details of the her will are expected to be released, before consulting their lawyers. The late Rajmata (or queen mother)'s estate includes a historic jewellery collection, opulent forts and palaces in her Rajasthan desert kingdom, a large shareholding in a number of Indian hotels, and a town house in Mayfair. A sprawling estate and country house close to her beloved Ascot, where Queen Elizabeth and Lord Mountbatten were once guests at her son's wedding, are believed to have been sold a few years earlier.
The Rajmata, who was friends with Jackie Onassis and took the Windsors on tiger hunting expeditions, had only recently settled a bitter dispute with her grandchildren over the will of her late son, Jagat Singh, the Raja of Isarda. She had produced a letter from him, alleged to be a forgery, in which he said his estranged children - Devraj and Lalitya - should not inherit any part of his estate. He had separated from their mother, a Thai princess, in an acrimonious divorce.
Gayatari Devi had also argued that her grandchildren could not own property in India because they held Thai and British passports. Their dispute was apparently settled in April when the Rajmata and her grandchildren struck a deal to split the estate equally.
Her one-third share was expected to pass to them upon her death, but there is now speculation that she may have left it to their uncle Prithviraj, another Jaipur royal. He is currently being sued by Devraj and Lalitya over their shareholding in the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, one of the world's most exclusive spas. After their playboy father's death in 1997, Gayatri Devi and Prithviraj, her son-in-law, initially accepted Devraj and Lalitya as the rightful heirs.
Tags:
Media