INDIA, May 27, 2015 (The Guardian): On Thursday the widow of the late maharaja will crown a new king — but his nephew is preparing a legal challenge to claim the US$12 billion estate estate. The fortune is the legacy of one of India’s richest princes, which tens of thousands have died in battle to protect. Now however, it will be a battery of lawyers who will defend the palaces, fortresses, jewels, crowns, paintings and vast domains of the royal house of Mysore, once an independent kingdom that was founded more than 500 years ago, and quickly established itself as one of the most powerful in southern India.
And it will be Indian judges, not force of arms, that will decide on their ownership. In June, a court in the southern city of Bangalore will hear the claim of Kanthraj Urs, the eldest nephew of the 28th maharaja of Mysore, the late Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar. Urs wants the entire estate and properties — worth approx. $12 billion by some estimates — to be split equally among the family. Urs, 42, claims that his uncle divided his immense wealth between his five sisters almost 30 years before he died two years ago, childless and without naming an heir.