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| The building under construction. (Fotocorp) |
New Delhi, May 2: The Supreme Court has thrown out a plea by the Maharashtra wakf board that wanted a stay lifted on restoration proceedings on a plot sold to Mukesh Ambani.
The wakf board had issued a notice to the Ambani-owned Antilia Commercial Private Limited on July 5, 2007, asking it to explain why the 4,532-square-metre land, which it said had been acquired illegally, should not be restored to it. Under current laws, no wakf land can be alienated from the board.
The plot in question was supposedly sold in 2002 by its owner, Currimbhoy Ebrahim Khoja Orphanage Trust, to Antilia for Rs 21.05 crore, without the mandatory consent of a majority of the board. All the Maharashtra government departments concerned had also removed restrictions on other uses of the land.
Later, the board ratified the sale after the trust paid it Rs 16 lakh as wakf fund. An earlier notice to Antilia by the board was also withdrawn. But when the state government suggested a probe into several such controversial sales of wakf land in the state, the board issued another notice to Antilia.
Antilia moved Bombay High Court for a stay on the board’s proceedings to get the land restored in its name. The court ordered the stay on October 18, 2007.
Ambani has been building a 27-storey building on the land, complete with multi-level parking lots, swimming pools and a helipad. Work on 17 floors is almost done, his lawyers said. The current value of the plot exceeds Rs 400 crore.
On Monday, arguing for the wakf board in the apex court, senior counsel Vijay Hansaria made out a case for lifting the stay on the restoration proceedings. He argued that under the wakf act, only the board or the wakf tribunal had jurisdiction in such matters. The high court could not interfere in it, he said.
He also said Antilia had taken advantage of the stay to continue work on the building. But the two-judge bench of Justices H.K. Sema and Markandey Katju refused to interfere in the case. “Go to the high court where the matter is pending,” it said.
