The controversy revolving around the purchase of the land for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is taking a new twist. The Daily Guardian came to know that Mahant Devendra Prasadacharya of Dasaratha Mahal temple sold this land to Deep Narayan— who’s said to be nephew of Ayodhya’s Mayor Rishikesh Upadhyay— for just Rs 20 lakh. “I had written this land to Deep Narayan cheaply for the Ram Mandir temple,” Prasadacharya told The Daily Guardian.
Mahant Devendra Prasadacharya told The Daily Guardian that Deep Narayan reached him to take the land of Gata number 135 of Ayodhya and said that this land is needed for ‘Ram temple work’.
But now Prasadacharya is surprised to know that this land has been bought by Ram Mandir Trust for Rs 2.5 crore. He said that he has been pained and saddened by the fact that the land which he gave for the temple has been bought at such an exorbitant price.
The controversy surfaced when Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh alleged earlier that land worth Rs 20 lakh was sold to Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Trust for Rs 2.5 crore.
Devendra Prasadacharya allegedly claims in the sale deed that he was the ‘owner’ of the said property and had the ‘full right to sell the land’.
Nevertheess, the controversy took a sharp twist when it came to the light that land sold was ‘nazul’. According to Government Grant Act, nazul land is owned by the government and can’t be sold. However, in some cases, government gives these lands on lease for development activities.
Prasadacharya hence sold this 890 sq mt land to Deep Narayan, for Rs 20 lakh in February this year, and surprisingly, Deep Narayan— who’s said to be nephew of Ayodhya’s Mayor Rishikesh Upadhyay— sold the same land to the temple trust for Rs 2.5 crore in May. As per the DM circle rate, the value of this land is approximately Rs 35 lakh, however it was sold at the rate that is several times higher.
Moreover, the sale deed registered between Prasadacharya and Narayan, reiterates that land was “not for public purpose use” and was “out of the ambit of acquisition process by any government department”.
The case surfaces amid a similar controversy, when on 14 June, Sanjay Singh, the AAP’s UP in-charge, alleged that a piece of land in Ayodhya was bought for Rs 2 crore from a couple — Kusum Pathak and Harish Pathak — by Sultan Ansari and Ravi Mohan Tiwari.
Singh claimed that the witnesses to the deal were Anil Mishra, a member of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, and Rishikesh Upadhyay, the Ayodhya Mayor. The same land was bought by the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust and Champat Rai, the VHP leader and general secretary of the trust, for Rs 18.5 crore within the span of “next five minutes”, Singh added.
However the trust defended the deal claiming that the final price paid for the land was much less than the market price.
But on 17 June, documents resurfaced and revealed that the same couple, Harish and Kusum Pathak, had also sold a 1.037-hectare plot to the temple trust for Rs 8 crore.
Although the trust is defending itself, it is failing to explain as to how Narayan has been able to sell the nazul land to the trust.