'Privy purses not enforceable rights,' SC rejects Mizo chiefs’ plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that privy purses and privileges granted to former rulers of the princely states were direct outcomes of specific pre-constitutional political and contractual arrangements negotiated with the government, which cannot be claimed as enforceable legal rights, much less a fundamental right.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan rejected a plea by the Mizo Chief Council claiming that Centre had acquired the lands of tribal chieftains of the erstwhile Lushai Hills district (present-day State of Mizoram) without paying due compensation.

The petitioner raised a plea of discrimination, contending that the Mizo chiefs stood on an equal historical footing with the rulers of the erstwhile princely states. They argued that the state’s failure to grant them comparable compensation or privy purses is manifestly arbitrary and violative of their fundamental rights.

In its judgment on March 13, 2026, the bench, however, said this assertion is entirely devoid of any legal basis and thereby merits outright rejection.

The court pointed out, the privy purses and other privileges granted to the erstwhile rulers of the princely states were the direct outcome of specific, pre-constitutional political and contractual arrangements negotiated between those rulers and the government.

Consequently, the court held, it would be legally flawed to equate and elevate these entitlements to the status of a right, which all erstwhile rulers were constitutionally bestowed upon. 

"Such political arrangements cannot be claimed as a matter of a legally enforceable right, much less a fundamental right,” the bench said.

The petitioner has also contended that the state of Assam (the parent state in 1954) lacked legislative jurisdiction to enact the Act, 1954. 

Rejecting this contention too, the bench said, “as the petitioner has not discharged its burden of establishing any violation of the fundamental rights of the chiefs, we do not deem it necessary to address the vires of the Act, 1954 or the legality of the impugned notification in this present writ petition."

The court also found the petitioners failed to discharge the core burden of proving that the chiefs had legally cognisable ownership title over the entire territory claimed or that the statutory compensation was “illusory” in the sense recognised by Article 31 jurisprudence. 

The court also referred to the material adduced by Centre, which at least on a prima facie examination, indicated that during the British administration of the Lushai Hills district, the title over the land never vested in the chiefs.

The court thus held, the petitioners have woefully failed to discharge their burden of proving title over the subject lands.

The petitioners primarily relied on accounts and writings of scholars and officials of the British government to lay their claims over the land. 

“Upon a meticulous perusal of the said material, it is, at the very outset, highly ambiguous whether these texts unequivocally recognise the Mizo Chiefs as the absolute owners of the land,” the bench said.