Lucknow Court puts stay on Amitabhs land donation

The farm land case continues to trouble cinestar Amitabh Bachchan as Lucknow court has put a stay on his land donation observing that the status quo on the land should be maintained.

Lucknow, July 24 : The farm land case continues to trouble cinestar Amitabh Bachchan as Lucknow court has put a stay on his land donation observing that the status quo on the land should be maintained.

The move came after the Uttar Pradesh Government termed the land donation by Amitabh as illegal.

Last week, Bachchan had announced donating his farmland in Pune and Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki District back to the villagers from whom he had purchased.

The court will hear Bachchan's petition challenging an order quashing the allotment of land to him in Barabanki on August 16.

Justice S N Srivastava of the Lucknow Bench of the High Court has given three weeks time to the petitioner for filing a rejoinder.

The High Court had on June 8 stayed the Faizabad Additional Commissioner's order quashing Bachchan's ownership of the land. However, the High Court had admitted his petition challenging the Faizabad court order that scrapped his ownership of a farmland.

In his petition Bachchan said that the Faizabad court's order exceeded its jurisdiction by not hearing his version and going into the merits of the case.

The Uttar Pradesh Government has already told the court that Bachchan allegedly committed another fraud by claiming that he was a resident of 17, Clive Road, Allahabad, in his application for farmland allotment in Barabanki District's Daulatpur village.

UP Government's lawyer D K Upadhya alleged that Bachchan's father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, lived at the said residence till 1958 after which the house was sold.

The Barabanki District Magistrate had earlier declared that the mode of transfer of land to Bachchan was illegal and directed that a case be lodged in the matter.

The former Mulayam Singh Yadav Government in the State had allotted three bighas (about 70,000 sq ft) of prime land in Daulatpur Village of Barabanki District to Bachchan, a close confidante of Mulayam's Samajwadi Party.

ANI