The Uttar Pradesh government said on Monday that the land involved in a lucrative deal between a nephew of the Ayodhya mayor and the Ram temple trust fell into the “nazul” category that cannot be sold without a notification.
“It’s nazul land and cannot be sold without a notification from the government that it had been converted into a freehold. I didn’t know that this nazul land had been transferred. Nobody has the right to transfer a nazul land to anybody,” Anuj Kumar Jha, district magistrate of Ayodhya, told reporters. Nazul land is government-owned land leased out to someone.
However, the official remained silent when asked whether the government would reverse the deal.
The portal Newslaundry had first reported that Deep Narayan, a nephew of Rishikesh Upadhyay, Ayodhya mayor and BJP leader, had paid Rs 20 lakh to a mahant for a 890sqm plot on February 20 and then sold it to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust on May 11 for Rs 2.5 crore.
The deal yields a cool profit of Rs 2.3 crore — a fresh instance of profiteering or “flipping” amid allegations that those who swear by Ram are milking the trust, entrusted with building the temple in Ayodhya, of funds collected from the government and from the public.
Deep, who allegedly bought the land from Mahant Devendra Prasadacharya of the Dashrath Mahal Badasthan in Kotramchandra area of Ayodhya Sadar, told reporters: “I bought the land for Rs 20 lakh. Thereafter, it was my land and I developed it. Since the trust needed the same land, I sold it to them. Every norm has been followed.”
The nature of the land development that Deep said he had undertaken between February, when he bought the land, and May, when he sold it, is not clear.
He did not give specific answers to the question how he could have bought and sold nazul land.
Upadhyay, the mayor, did not respond to phone calls or a text message from this newspaper.
Prasadacharya said: “The nazul land had been in our temple management’s possession for the past many decades and we used to do farming there, but without much success. Deep Narayan told me he was buying the land to hand it over to the Ram temple trust. Since the land was of not much use to us, even Rs 20 lakh seemed enough and we accepted the deal.”
Brij Mohan Das, mahant of the adjoining Chauburji temple, suggested it was not an isolated development and that officials were aware of such deals.
“Government officials used to visit the area and ask us to sell the land to the trust. They knew that the plots were nazul but still wanted us to register them. Even I sold a piece of nazul land adjacent to the same plot to the same person. The officials knew about it,” he said.
A trust official said land was being bought to accommodate those displaced by the temple project.
“We are buying land to rehabilitate those who will be displaced from the Ram temple area in Ayodhya where construction is going on. People may level allegations against us but we are working in a transparent manner,” Champat Rai, general secretary of the trust, said.
Earlier, the trust had bought another plot of land in Bag Bijaisi of Ayodhya for Rs 18.5 crore from a person who had bought it for Rs 2 crore the same day. The trust said the land was bought at a rate that was less than the market rate.
