High court grants ownership of disputed Mhow land to govt

INDORE

: High court has quashed a 2004 revenue board order that made a private individual owner of a 9.75 acre land worth crores of rupees in Rasalpura area of Mhow.

The court vested ownership of the disputed land with the state government, in accordance to a previous order by Mhow sub-divisional officer.

The division bench of Justice SC Sharma and Justice Virendra Singh also asked Indore divisional commissioner to form a committee to check why the revenue board order that handed over the land to one Solomon Smith was not challenged by revenue officers posted in Mhow since November 25, 2004, when the board gave the directives.

“The prime land worth crores of rupees was mutated in the name of an individual and the revenue authorities kept quite over the matter,” the court observed adding that commissioner shall be free to take appropriate action in accordance with law by directing registration of a criminal case and by directing initiation of departmental inquiry against the officers found guilty.

The PIL was filed before high court by Varsha Garg and Jayesh Garg, wife and brother of advocate from Mhow Yogesh Garg, who was murdered in 2015 and was connected to the dispute.

Their counsel, Pourush Ranka, said the disputed land in village Santer in Rasalpura area of Mhow was given on lease to one Kag Sahib Padri by erstwhile rulers and after Padri’s death the land lapsed with

tehsildar

since Padri did not have any successors.

However, in 1987, the United Church of

Bhopal

staked their claim over the land. They claimed that Padri was their priest and that they were his legal successors. The land was mutated in the church’s name. However in 1992, SDO reversed the order on application made by the

Malwa

Church Council, mutating the land back in state government’s name. Since this order had not been challenged for a long time, the land ownership vested with the state government.

In 1997, Solomon Smith moved his claim over the land stating that it belonged to him since he was the legal heir of Kag Padri. In 2004, revenue board upheld that the land belonged to Smith.

The court also directed the collector to take possession of land and remove encroachments, the advocate said adding the bench also asked the collector to form a committee to oversee the operations of the church built on the land.


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