No records of Nizam's treasure transferred to Pak: Govt

Government has claimed that it has no records of the six-decades-old Hyderabad Funds case in which over one million pounds of the Nizam's wealth lying in a bank in England was transferred to the then High Commissioner of Pakistan in London in 1948.
Surprisingly, Press Information Bureau had issued a press release in 2008 claiming that the Union Cabinet has cleared for an out-of-court settlement with Pakistan over the issue.
The Central Information Commission has now directed the External Affairs Ministry to disclose whether any negotiation process was started between India and Pakistan over the treasure, worth over a million pounds which is now estimated to be 30 million pounds, lying in a bank account in London.

The move came after the ministry and the Law Ministry claimed that they have no records related to the treasure.
The case relates to RTI application filed by Akbar Ali Khan who wanted from the Law Ministry the certified copies of records pertaining to deposits made on September 20, 1948.
The ministry also said it does not have any such records with it and dismissed the petition.

"As the CPIO and First Appellate Authority stated that they searched all the files and could not find paper sought by appellant the Commission holds that no direction could be issued to the public authority to provide information when it had nothing within its records," Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said in his directive to Law Ministry.

Khan also wrote to Prime Minister's Office stating that two gold sovereigns of Mughal period were lying in Switzerland and in the custody of a bank called Credit Agricole Indosuez Geneva which he claimed belong to erstwhile ruler of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur.
Through his RTI petition, he wanted to any records which could give information about these sovereigns.