Intense lobbying by the scion of the erstwhile royal family of Mysore, Srikantadatta Wodeyar, with some help from Urban Development Minister Ram Jethmalani, as reported in The Indian Express, had succeeded in scuttling the Bill, which the President cleared on August 28.

Apparently aware of State Chief Minister J H Patel's meeting with the President this evening, the Home Ministry decided not to delay things any further. Narayanan is said to have told Patel today that he had given his assent to the Bill around the time the Dasera festivities were to begin in the palace.

The State Government had been exchanging a spate of letters with the Centre complaining that Jethmalani had been coming in the way of the clearance of the Bill, a charge which the Ministersubsequently denied. It had also charged that the delaying tactics of the Centre was an affront to the Constitution and went against the federal character of the country's polity.

Jethmalani had dashed off a note to the Home Ministry saying that the Mysore Palace (Acquisition and Transfer) Bill, 1998 had to be carefully examined as prima facie it suffered from legal infirmities. This, despite the Bill being cleared by the Attorney General as well as the Law Ministry, besides other Ministries concerned.

Jethmalani's intervention had prompted the Home Ministry to withhold assent, even as a jittery State Government was seething with rage. The Karnataka Government was anxious as a contempt case filed against it by Wodeyar in the High Court is due for hearing on December 3. Sources in the State Government alleged that the Centre was deliberately withholding assent to ensure that the Court directed it to hand over the palace to Wodeyar.

The palace has been in the possession of the State Government from 1976when the late Maharaja, Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, proposed that a trust be formed to take care of the property. In 1985, his son Srikantadatta wrote to the Government asking it to return the property to him, but the State refused. He then filed a writ petition in the HC saying that the Government had no powers to take over the palace.

In 1997, the HC upheld Wodeyar's plea, ruling that the Government could not take over the palace through an executive order but only through a proper legislation. Striking down the order, it directed the Government to hand over the palace to Wodeyar in 30 days. The Government then moved the Supreme Court, which granted a stay but subsequently vacated it.

It was after this that the State passed a legislation, which was sent to the Centre for the President's concurrence. The State could still be hauled up for contempt for not handing over the palace to Wodeyar during the interregnum between the dismissal of its plea by the SC and the Presidential assent for the Bill.

This,according to State Government sources, could be circumvented by promulgating an ordinance giving retrospective effect to the Bill for the takeover of the palace.

Patel told the President in a letter today that ``if possession of the palace is handed over now, as a result of these contempt proceedings, it would be difficult to prevent transactions, both in valuable movables and immovables properties attached to the palace and it would defeat the very object of the legislation.'' He requested the President to direct the Home Ministry to convey assent to the Bill without further delay.