Four Decades And Waiting: A Tale Of Betrayal And Injustice For Rajasthan's Khetri Trust

The town of Khetri sits folded into the hills of Shekhawati, a small princely domain whose corridors once hosted conversations that shaped modern India. It was here, in the princely households and estates of Khetri, that a young Motilal Nehru spent formative years after being taken there as an infant by his elder brother Nandlal, who had entered the service of Khetri’s rulers. Those early days in a town of palaces, copper mines and courtly households, a world at once provincial and cosmopolitan, imprinted on the Nehru scion a familiarity with princely patronage, administration and the rhythms of landed life that would shadow his later public career.

Khetri’s palaces were more than royal residences; they were hubs of cultural exchange. Swami Vivekananda, for instance, visited three times and was received as an honoured guest by Raja Ajit Singh in 1891. The mansion where Vivekananda stayed was later entrusted to the Ramakrishna Mission and transformed into the Vivekananda Smriti Mandir, a memorial that preserves the rooms, relics, and memory of his visits, sustaining the town’s spiritual heritage.

Yet Khetri’s palaces have also been at the centre of a long and bruising legal saga.

After the death of Raja Sardar Singh, the last ruler of the princely state of Khetri, in 1987, the Rajasthan government invoked the Escheats Regulation Act, (which allows the State to claim properties of individuals who die without legal heirs) to take possession of dozens of Khetri properties. The Khetri Trust countered the state’s claim with a will dated October 30, 1985,  and claimed that the estates were part of a will presented by Raja Sardar Singh in Tiz Hazari Court in Delhi before his death. According to the will, the estates, artefacts and other material things were meant to fund education and public welfare under the Trust’s aegis.

Pain, Court Rounds And Contempt Notice

If the first part of the saga is rooted in history, the second part is a long chronicle of patience and waiting.

Prithvi Raj Singh, scion of the Khetri lineage and custodian of its trust, has fought this case for far too long. Since his appointment as managing trustee in 2008, he has been at the forefront of a battle that has defined nearly two decades of his life. “What can I say?” he reflects on the September 2025 Supreme Court decision. “It was fun while it lasted—the travel, the hearings, the early morning drives to Delhi, briefing lawyers. It became such a part of our lives that, when the final hearing came, I almost didn’t know what to feel.” He recalls leaving the Supreme Court that day: “My reaction was simple. We are not coming back here again. It felt like the last day of school.” Yet, as with everything in this case, the twist came later: the judgment was in their favour, but the State never complied.

The frustration kept within for decades sharpens when he speaks of the properties themselves - palaces, hotels, estates meant to fund education for children through the mission outlined in the will. “They took the properties, they ruined the property. They could have used it with us, for the purpose it was meant for. We’ve built schools, funded infrastructure,  we’ve always been ready to work with them. But every conversation with bureaucrats ended with one line: ‘It’s been going on for so long, how can we stop it?"

Since the Supreme Court order in September 2025, the Trust has written, called, petitioned, to the state government, the bureaucracy, the Chief Secretary. No reply. Legal notices have been ignored. 

“What are they waiting for?” he asks, half-resigned, half-furious. “The Trust will now file a contempt petition after December 6,” he says.

Proofs, Documents Vanished Over The Years

Singh’s anecdotes read like accounts of absurdity: affidavits claiming records were stolen in 1987, followed by police statements denying any theft; hotel staff who vanished after a government-run property was gutted; artefacts supposedly catalogued, only for officials to later admit no list had ever been made. This might sound like a movie script, yet it unfolded in real life over years.

The most painful truth, Singh says, is that this spans generations, not a single administration. “One set of politicians and bureaucrats acted this way, then the next, and the next. People who weren’t even born when this started now continue it. Why?”

He adds that the hardest part was the betrayal of purpose. “The estate wasn’t left to me, or even the Trust. It was left to children. We were merely facilitators. Even the court urged the government to join hands with the Trust and fulfil the mission. We agreed. They refused.”

His disbelief is palpable. “The Supreme Court told them they should be ashamed. Judges asked if they had seen the photographs of the destroyed properties—‘see them before lunch,’ they said, ‘or you’ll vomit.’ And yet nothing changes. When I leave this world, I will leave a country where governance can act like this, where even a Supreme Court order doesn’t move the system, where heritage can be looted and no one is held accountable.”