Saif Ali Khan has already dismissed rumours of him planning to buy back Pataudi Palace, his ancestral home, from a hotel chain few years back.
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In a massive setback for Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, the actor has lost out on properties belonging to the Pataudi family worth Rs 15000 crore as the Madhya Pradesh High Court has declared them as ‘Enemy Property.’ They have overturned a 1999 verdict favouring his great-grandmother, Sajida Sultan.
As per India’s Enemy Property Act, such assets are those left by individuals who migrated to Pakistan post-Partition (1947) or became citizens there—here, due to Sajida’s brother moving to Pakistan. The government can now manage or seize them.
Saif Ali Khan has already dismissed rumours of him planning to buy back Pataudi Palace, his ancestral home, from a hotel chain few years back. He also pointed out that the property’s price being Rs 800 crore is a “massive exaggeration.”
The actor told Mumbai Mirror that he is the owner of the property, which was leased to Neemrana Hotels. However, after his father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi’s death in 2011 he desired for the family to possess the palace once again.
“It’s impossible to put a value to it in monetary terms because emotionally, the property is priceless. My grandparents and father are buried there, there’s security, serenity and a spiritual connection there for me. The land goes back by a few centuries, but the palace that my grandfather built for my grandmother is around a hundred years old. He was the ruling monarch then, but since then, privy purses and titles have been abolished. These are different times which is why my father leased it out and Francis (Wacziarg) and Aman (Nath), who ran a hotel in the palace, took good care of the property and were like family. My mother (Sharmila Tagore) has a cottage there and she was always comfortable,” said Khan.
