Jaipur: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the state govt in the ongoing legal battle over the ownership of the historic Town Hall in old Jaipur, while declining to stay the earlier Rajasthan High Court judgment that declared it state property.The dispute, involving properties valued at nearly Rs 2,500 crore, centres around several historic buildings in Jaipur’s Walled City, including the former Vidhan Sabha (Town Hall), police headquarters, home guard general directorate and accountant office complex at Jaleb Chowk.The matter reached the apex court after the erstwhile Jaipur royal family, led by Padmini Devi, filed a special leave petition (SLP) challenging the Rajasthan High Court’s single bench order of April 17, which declared these buildings as “govt property”.The single bench of Justice Ashok Kumar Jain had issued this order while accepting four revision petitions from the state govt. The single bench order also decreed that no civil court could entertain any claims related to this case.Senior advocate Harish Salve appeared before the apex court on behalf of Padmini Devi and others and submitted that the dispute involves purely civil rights over private property that was ceded to the state govt under a covenant with the express condition that it be used only for official purposes by the govt.A division bench comprising justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Augustine George acknowledged the case as involving “an important question of law” but refused to grant any interim relief. The court has given the state govt six weeks to respond to the notices issued to chief secretary, principal secretary (general administration) and Amber development and management authority.Controversy over the Town Hall building, which housed the Rajasthan assembly until Nov 2000, intensified in 2022 when the then Congress govt under Ashok Gehlot announced plans to convert the old Vidhan Sabha building into a ‘world class Rajasthan heritage museum’, prompting objections from the erstwhile Jaipur royal family.Additional advocate general Shiv Mangal Sharma, representing the state govt, argued in the apex court that such disputes concerning pre-Constitution covenants were barred under Article 363 of the Constitution. He assured the court that the state would respect the pending proceedings and refrain from taking any action regarding the property during the course of proceedings.
