Bachchan: Welcome stay

Lucknow, June 8: Allahabad High Court today stayed a Faizabad court order cancelling the allotment of farmland to Amitabh Bachchan, saying it had been “hasty” and “unfair”.

In his seven-page order, Justice D.P. Singh granted the stay while admitting Bachchan’s petition.

The actor had challenged the June 1 order of the Faizabad additional commissioner, Vidya Sagar Prasad, who ruled that the entry in revenue records had been forged and that Bachchan was “not a farmer”.

Singh said the additional commissioner had exceeded his jurisdiction and violated the principles of natural justice in quashing the transfer of the land in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district, 35 km from here.

He rapped Prasad for being “hasty” in taking a decision on “the controversy at the admission stage without considering the statutory provisions. Prima facie, it seems to have exceeded its jurisdiction”.

On the additional commissioner violating the principles of natural justice, Singh said: “The concept of the rule of law shall lose its validity if the state is permitted to discharge its function in an unfair and unjust manner.”

The judge added: “The concept of natural justice is aimed at securing justice... Natural justice is the antithesis of arbitrariness.”

The court said Prasad had erred in recording the findings on the alleged fraud and forgery at the revision stage and should have left it to the trial court.

The high court fixed July 23 as the next date of hearing. It granted four weeks to the state government for filing a counter-affidavit and asked Bachchan to submit a rejoinder two weeks after that.

“The court’s order is our victory. We wanted the court to hear our viewpoints and that is exactly what the court has allowed,” I.P. Singh, one of Bachchan’s lawyers, said.

Yesterday, the court had reserved its order on the admissibility of Bachchan’s petition.

The additional advocate-general , appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, had said Bachchan committed fraud by dropping his surname and giving a misleading address in his application for the land.

A writ petition seeking a CBI probe into Bachchan’s land deal was filed by journalist Jagadish Narain Shukla in the high court today.

“It had inter-state dimensions,” the petition said, referring to another farmland controversy in Maharashtra that Bachchan is embroiled in.

Shukla alleged that undue pressure had been exerted on officials for making “forged” entries in revenue records to transfer the land in the actor’s name.

The petition is likely to come up for hearing on Monday.