Trust estate not allowed for sale-purchase: HC

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court today ordered that 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 given back to the temple trust as this 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 a proposed luxury hotel planned by a hotelier 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 person, who entered into a joint venture agreement with a private firm for construction of a luxury hotel on the same land.

In January 2011, Bhubaneswar Development Authority sanctioned construction of the Hotel plan. But in October the said land was recorded in the name of General Administration (GA) department of the State government, which stopped construction of the Hotel in October 2011.