According to persons familiar with the situation, a local court in Ayodhya ruled that the transfer of 13 acres of land owned by Dalits to the Maharishi Ramayan Vidyapeeth Trust in 1996 was unconstitutional and ordered that the land be returned to the state government.
Last week, an assistant record officer, Bhan Singh, issued the decision while hearing a lawsuit contesting the Maharishi Ramayan Vidyapeeth Trust’s transfer of land in Manjha Barhata village in Ayodhya district.
After completing an investigation into a complaint by one Mahadev, a citizen of Banwari Purva in Ayodhya, against the transfer of land to the Trust, the case was registered on the orders of the then Ayodhya district magistrate, Anuj Jha. According to persons listed above who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the investigation deemed the complaint to be legitimate.
On October 22, 1996, the Trust had the land transferred in its name by one of its workers, Ronghai, a Dalit. According to the people, the move took place without the permission of the district magistrate.
“The Trust engaged Ronghai as a middleman in the land transaction. Following that, it had the land transferred in its name from Ronghai without the permission of the then district magistrate,” one of the witnesses claimed.
According to the allegations, several Uttar Pradesh government officials and their family allegedly purchased land from the Maharishi Ramayan Vidyapeeth Trust.
“The Maharishi Ramayan Vidyapeeth Trust, state government officials, and their relatives who bought land in Manjha Barhata and Shahnawazpur villages are under the microscope of the team investigating the Ayodhya land purchase deals, which involve senior officials and politicians from the state,” one of the sources said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had ordered an investigation into all such land purchases in Ayodhya involving state government officials, their family, and politicians on December 22 of last year.
Registries of all people who purchased land from the Maharishi Ramayan Vidyapeeth Trust in Manjha Barhata Trust will now be null and void, according to legal experts.
According to Section 98(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006, no bhumidhar (land owner) belonging to a Scheduled Caste has the right to sell, gift, mortgage, or lease any land to a person who is not a Scheduled Caste without the collector’s prior written consent.
