Justice Patel land fishy

Senior Judge of the Bombay High Court Justice J N Patel and his family members have finally filed a return of their ancestral land situated at Mouza Chinchbhuvan, which is covered under the Urban Land Ceiling (ULC) Act, on Monday afternoon. Sources said that Hari Narayan Patel, younger brother of Justice J N Patel, and his lawyer Sanjay Puranik filed the return.

The return was filed pursuant to a show-cause notice issued by ULC Authorities to Patel family to file a return of their land. Sources revealed that Patel family has filed a return under Section 6 (1) of Urban Land Ceiling Act, 1976. They have given brief description of the total vacant land held by a person and family members. The details were submitted to U S Dahalkar, Additional Collector and Competent Authority of ULC, Nagpur. However, the officials as well as lawyers for the landowner family refused to divulge any details about the contents of the return.

 

According to the sources, after filing the return, the ULC officers will verify the details and would carry out spot inspection. They could also demand birth certificates of the family members and check whether they were adult at the time of urban agglomeration of the said land. Till then, without ULC’s permission, the land could not be transferred or sold to anybody. Patel family had entered into an agreement to sell the 41.14 acres (out of 45 acres ancestral land) situated at Mouza Chinchbhuvan to Nikhil Chaturvedi and his realty firm M/s Hagwood Private Limited for a whopping Rs 105 crore or at Rs 2.55 crore per acre. The agreement was registered on April 26, 2007, and the purchaser handed over a cheque of Rs 90 crore and furnished an irrevocable bank guarantee of Rs 15 crore to Patels. In a communication to ULC authority dated May 9, 2007, the Patel family mentioned that Justice Jai Narayan Patel owned 6.34 hectares land while his brothers Shri Narayan Patel was shown owner of 6.15 hectares and Hari Narayan Patel of 4.16 hectares. Sources said that under the Act, no person could hold more than 1500 sq mt vacant land, which is the ceiling limit.

 

The remaining land would be declared surplus and would be taken over by the Maharashtra Government. Under the notice issued by U S Dahalkar, Additional Collector and Competent Authority of ULC Nagpur, Patel family was asked to submit the land documents and return under Section 6 (1) of the ULC Act by August 13, 2007. The notice warned that failure to file land return under Section 6 (1) within stipulated time period would result in initiation of action under Section 5 (3) and 38 (4) of the ULC Act, 1976. Under this section, the agreement to sale of the said land would be held null and void and land owners – the Patel family – could face prosecution. After receiving the notice, the lawyer of Patel family had asked for one month’s time to file the return. Till 2001, the land was shown as No Development Zone-Agriculture but as per the sanctioned Development Plan and Development Control Rules (DCR) 2001 for city of Nagpur, part of said land was reserved for Railways, Parking, Roads and hence it became mandatory to submit return under Section 6 (1) of the ULC Act. According to the highly-placed sources, the notices were issued to Jai Narayan Patel, Shri Narayan Patel and Hari Narayan Patel on August 6, 2007, since the letter dated May 14, 2007, went unresponded. The reminder sent by ULC mentioned that the land belonging to Patel family came under the purview of ULC and the family possessed more than 1,500 sq. m land (Khasra Numbers 25, 29 and 30 of Mouza Chinchbhuvan). According to legal experts dealing with ULC matters, the ULC Authority will scrutinise the return before finalising the retainable share of Patel family and surplus land.

 

Within two months of this exercise, the landowner is entitled to apply for exemption by proposing some housing scheme on it. Under Section 21 of ULC Act, the authorities may permit the scheme in which the low cost housing flats would be constructed and 5 per cent of such flats would be given free of cost to Government. Government had scrapped the Talegaon Dabhade scheme (permissible under Section 20 of the ULC Act), in which exemption could be granted to land owners possessing surplus land declared under the ULC.

~ by nagpurestate on October 17, 2007.