HC dismisses plea claiming ownership of land offered for Ayodhya mosque

The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed against the allotment of land in Ayodhya's Dhannipur village for the construction of a mosque, following the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.

Two Delhi-based sisters had moved the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on February 3, claiming ownership of the five-acre land allotted to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the mosque.

Appearing for the state, Additional Advocate General Ramesh Kumar Singh had opposed the plea, saying the plot numbers allotted for the mosque are different from those the petition is filed about.

On Monday, justices D K Upadhyay and Manish Kumar dismissed the plea after the petitioners' lawyer, H G S Parihar, sought to withdraw it. The bench also expressed concerns with Parihar for filing the petition in a cursory manner without ascertaining the facts.

Rani Kapoor, alias Rani Baluja, and Rama Rani Punjabi had said in the writ petition that their father Gyan Chandra Punjabi had come to India during partition in 1947 from Punjab and settled in Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district.

They claimed that their father was allotted 28-acre land in Dhannipur village by the Nazul Department for five years which he continued to possess beyond that period. Later, his name was included in the revenue records, the petitioners had said.

However, his name was struck down from the records against which their father filed an appeal before the Additional Commissioner, Ayodhya, which was allowed, they claimed.

The petitioners further claimed that the consolidation officer again removed their father's name from the records during consolidation proceedings.

Against the order of the consolidation officer, an appeal was preferred before the Settlement Officer of Consolidation, Sadar, Ayodhya, but without considering the said petition, the authorities allotted five-acre of their 28-acre land to the Waqf Board for the constructing of mosque, they said.

The petitioners demanded that the authorities be restrained from transferring the land to the Sunni Waqf Board till the pendency of dispute before the settlement officer.

The state government has allotted five-acre land to the Sunni Waqf Board in Dhannipur village for construction of a mosque in compliance with Supreme Court direction in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri mosque title suit.