Bhubaneswar, May 10: The Puri district administration has come out with the list of names of persons and institutions that had encroached upon Lord Jagannath's land.

The administration today restored the list to the owner of the land - Shree Jagannath Temple Trust.

The list of encroachers includes not only various hotels, shops and rented houses that have sprouted in and around the temple, but also various mutts, including the Govardhan Peeth - the seat of Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati.

"The mutt's land records have been settled in favour of the temple trust," said a senior official who did not want to be named.

Govardhan Peeth spokesperson Manoj Rath said: "The restoration of the land to the temple trust is really unfortunate. The Shank-aracharya's mutt has been associated with the Jagannath culture for more than a thousand years. Attempts have been made to diminish the authority of the Shankar-acharya. Once we get a copy of the order, we will take legal recourse."

The Shankaracharya's office also said that 120 of 131 "samadhis" of previous Puri Shankaracharyas had remained encroached upon with the administration choosing to look the other way.

"Hotels and business establishments have come up on the encroached land," said Rath.#In another development, a nine-member team led by Puri district collector Arvind Agrawal has submitted its report on encroachment at Swargadwar to the revenue divisional commissioner. The 16-acre crematorium has shrunk to a one-acre facility because of encroachment. The probe team has examined all land settlement records of Swargadwar from 1899 to 1989 before filing its report.

"The encroachments had taken place between 1985 and 1995. The government is aware of it, but it lacks courage to launch an eviction drive," said Shree Jagannath Sena convener Priyadarshan Patnaik.