In a significant judgment the Orissa High Court on Monday ordered that an area of 2.865 acre land that belongs to Lord Lingaraj Temple trust near Bhubaneswar airport and which was subsequently vested on the State government shall be recorded back in the temple trust as the same land is not tenable for any sale or purchase.
A Division Bench of Justices B. N. Mohapatra and Indrajit Mahanti allowing a writ petition filed by one Chitaranjan Mekap in its judgment also said that the proposed luxury hotel on the same land is “fallacious” and without legal sanction because the State Government does not have any legal power to do so. The case inter alia pertains that the land belonging to Lord Lingaraj was declared as “trust estate” burdened with incidence of service in favour of servitor Gobinda Mekap, father of the petitioner.
While the property remained protected from vesting under Orissa Estates Abolition Act of 1951, Gobinda executed one unregistered lease deed in favour of one D. Anand Rao Dora and three others in 1965. Later, the successors of Dora executed the land in favour of another Rutupurna Dhirsamant, who entered into a joint venture agreement with M/s Assotech Millan Resorts Pvt. Ltd for construction of a luxury hotel on the same land.
In January 2011, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority sanctioned construction of the hotel plan. But in October the said land was recorded in the name of General Administration department of the State Government, which stopped construction of the hotel in October 2011.