Lucknow: The Ayodhya District and Revenue departments have rejected claims of the two Delhi-based sisters that 5 acres of land, allotted for the construction of Dhannipur mosque, is part of 28 acres of land owned by their families.
The two sisters have filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court challenging allotment of 5 acres of land by the State government to the Central Sunni Waqf Board for mosque construction as mandated by Supreme Court in its Ayodhya title suit verdict on November 9, 2019. The petition is likely to come up for hearing on February 8.
Rajesh Kumar Pandey, a revenue officer, claimed that there was no dispute on allotted 5 acre of land. He pointed that the two sisters have cited a wrong case in their petition to stake claim on the land.
“There is no dispute on the allotted 5 acres of land. The case which they have cited in their petition pertains to Sherpur Jafar village and not Dhannipur. We will place all documents before the High Court whenever hearing in the case takes place,” said the revenue officer.
The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation, entrusted with the task of mosque construction, has already laid foundation stone on the allotted 5 acres of land in village Dhannipur on the Republic Day to begin the construction at the earliest.
The two sisters claimed in the petition that their father Gyan Chand Punjabi had settled in Ayodhya after partition. He was allotted 28 acres of land in village Dhannipur for five year lease. It got recorded in his name in revenue records.
After inquiries, SDM had passed an order in 1998 to delete his name from the revenue records. The Delhi sisters claimed their mother fought a long legal battle and finally won the case to get back the land.
The revenue officer, however, refuted their claims saying that the land came under sealing and it was handed back to the state government.
