Bachchan: Hear me, please

Lucknow, June 5 (PTI): Amitabh Bachchan today moved Allahabad High Court challenging the Faizabad additional commissioner’s decision to quash the transfer of land in his name in Barabanki.

The petition, filed in the high court’s Lucknow bench, is likely to come up for hearing on Thursday.

Bachchan has pleaded that he was not given an opportunity to be heard by the commissioner’s court.

“The Faizabad additional commissioner exceeded his jurisdiction by going into the merits of the case whereas he was only to decide on a technical point,” Bachchan’s counsel Gaurav Bhatia added.

The Faizabad divisional commissioner has recommended action against the officials responsible for making forged entries in the land records. These officials include former Barabanki district magistrate Ramashankar Sahu, sub-divisional magistrate M.S. Yadav and their subordinate staff, sources said.

The court has sent a report to the government but has made no mention of Bachchan in it, the sources added.

On June 1, additional commissioner (administration) V.S. Prasad had quashed the transfer of land in Bachchan’s name and termed the allotment illegal and fraudulent.

After hearing the arguments of Bachchan’s counsel, the court upheld the March 2006 order of the then Barabanki DM, Ashis Goel, who had quashed the transfer of the plot to Bachchan by the consolidation officer.

The court also quashed the stay on Goel’s order by his successor, Sahu, and directed the district administration to vest the plot to the Gram Samaj of Daulatpur. The court asked the Barabanki DM to comply with the directives.

On a complaint by some Barabanki villagers that the land was transferred in Bachchan’s name though he was neither a farmer nor a resident of the district, Goel in March 2006 had instituted an inquiry by the additional district magistrate and declared that the mode of transfer was illegal. He had also asked that an FIR be lodged.