The Indian government plans to raise billions of rupees by auctioning off “enemy properties”, houses and land left behind by people who moved to Pakistan or China in the wake of India’s wars with those countries.
Roughly 9,280 such properties were abandoned, or given to relatives, by people who became Pakistani nationals after wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971. Similarly, people who went to China during or after the 1962 war left behind around 126 properties.
On Monday, the home ministry issued guidelines to govern the sale process, and it asked the Custodian of Enemy Properties (CEP), a government agency, to submit a list of assets within three months.
District-level committees will assess the precise values of the properties, based on real-estate prices in the area. But Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, the junior home minister, had told parliament last year that the government’s estimate of the properties’ aggregated value ran to 1 trillion rupees.
But the government’s classification of these properties is not without controversy, and some lawyers claim it discriminates against Indian Muslims.
When the Enemy Property Ordinance was issued in 1968, India had already fought wars with India and China. The CEP took over management of these properties, essentially to ensure that they could not be used to aid hostile powers, said Aishwarya Pandit, who teaches at Jindal Global Law School in Sonipat and who studies laws dealing with enemy properties.
"There was precedent in international law for this kind of measure," Ms Pandit told The National. "The US and the UK did the same thing during the Second World War, with properties owned by those who went to the Axis countries."
The premise of such laws has always been that properties would be returned after hostilities end, Ms Pandit said, but in reality, that has never happened.
Successive Indian governments renewed the ordinance after 1968. Last year, however, India’s parliament — dominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — replaced the ordinance with an act that made the original stipulations even more stringent.
The law now recognises as enemy property any land or house that a person lawfully transferred to heirs or relatives before moving to Pakistan or China. A father who chose to relocate from Delhi to Karachi, for instance, may have passed on his Delhi residence to his son before doing so. But even if the son continued to live on in Delhi as an Indian citizen, never even setting foot in Pakistan, his house can be considered enemy property.
The new law did not go unchallenged. In parliament, while debating over this provision, the senior Congress politician Shashi Tharoor argued that it tries to “explicitly create two kinds of Indian citizens … If somehow there are two categories of Indian citizens and one category does not have the rights of the other, that is a very dangerous practice".
Last year, another Congress parliamentarian, Husain Dalwai, filed a petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the law. Mr Dalwai’s lawyer, Anand Grover, told Reuters that the law’s purpose “seems to be to deprive Muslims of their right to ancestral property that the state seized".
The guidelines issued on Monday suggest that while vacant enemy properties may be auctioned directly or converted to government use, properties occupied by heirs may be sold back to them for “a percentage of the valuation".
Mr Dalwai’s petition was dismissed. But another still-pending petition, filed by Mohammad Amir Khan, may hold a ray of hope for those who hope to hold on to their ancestral property.
Mr Khan’s father, the former king of the Mahmudabad region of Uttar Pradesh, went from India to Iraq in 1947, and then on to Pakistan, where he became a citizen in 1957. Mr Khan inherited the title of “Raja” and also the royal properties: 936 of them, across north India.
When the CEP took over these properties — against the letter of the previous ordinance — Mr Khan sued and fought that lawsuit for decades. In 2005, the Supreme Court confirmed that Mr Khan, as an Indian citizen, was entitled to regain his properties.
But they were never returned to him. Further, the new law — which Mr Khan called “dictatorial” and “arbitrary” — precludes any possibility that he will ever get back his properties. His petition, filed in the Supreme Court, hopes to persuade judges that the new law contradicts the 2005 court decision in his favour.
Ms Pandit said she did not hold much hope for Mr Khan. “In most court cases about enemy property, the property hasn’t been returned,” she said. “I don’t think this can be challenged with any success.”
Honeymoonish
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Jewel of the Expo 2020
252 projectors installed on Al Wasl dome
13.6km of steel used in the structure that makes it equal in length to 16 Burj Khalifas
550 tonnes of moulded steel were raised last year to cap the dome
724,000 cubic metres is the space it encloses
Stands taller than the leaning tower of Pisa
Steel trellis dome is one of the largest single structures on site
The size of 16 tennis courts and weighs as much as 500 elephants
Al Wasl means connection in Arabic
World’s largest 360-degree projection surface
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Game Changer
Director: Shankar
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
AT%20A%20GLANCE
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company%C2%A0profile
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THE BIO
Ms Davison came to Dubai from Kerala after her marriage in 1996 when she was 21-years-old
Since 2001, Ms Davison has worked at many affordable schools such as Our Own English High School in Sharjah, and The Apple International School and Amled School in Dubai
Favourite Book: The Alchemist
Favourite quote: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail
Favourite place to Travel to: Vienna
Favourite cuisine: Italian food
Favourite Movie : Scent of a Woman
What can you do?
Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses
Seek professional advice from a legal expert
You can report an incident to HR or an immediate supervisor
You can use the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s dedicated hotline
In criminal cases, you can contact the police for additional support
