INDIAN WINS CASE

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 July 1946, Page 7

INDIAN WINS CASE

RIGHT TO £l 00,000 A YEAR ESTABLISHED A REMARKABLE STORY (Reed. 2 p.m.) LONDON, July 30. One of the strangest stories ever told in a court of law ended to-day when the judicial committee of the Privy Council ruled that an Indian who had roamed the country for 12 years after being saved from a funeral prye is a Rajah and the rightful owner of an estate almost as big as England. The court dismissed a claim by the Ranee —who had since remarried—that she had seen her husband cremated and the man opposing her appeal was an impostor. The decision entitled the Rajah Kumah Ramendra Narayan Roy, to an income of £lOO,OOO a year. The litigation began years ago and the final appeal, heard by three law lords, lasted 28 days, which is the longest in the Privy Council’s history. Over 1500 witnesses were heard and the printed records totalled almost 1,000,000 words. It is calculated that the lawyers fees in the Indian courts alone absorbed a year’s income from the estate.