BHUBANESWAR: Construction work on 1.150 acre land belonging to Lingaraj temple was stopped by Khurda district administration on Sunday following intervention of Revenue administration even as the Opposition targeted the State government over its brazen and illegal transfer to a private person.
A team led by Bhubaneswar tehsildar Pradeep Sahu stopped construction on the land carried out by a private firm. It seized a container on the plot at Bhimpur mouza near the airport and put up a notice. Official sources maintained the land has been restored to its original owner (Lingaraj temple) and the subsequent mutation patta cancelled.
However, the manner in which the land was transferred has snowballed into a huge controversy since Lingaraj Temple happens to be original owner of the land while the State government has embarked upon a massive Ekamra development plan in the region.
Sources said the land was recorded in favour of Hrushikesh Das, son of late Harmohan Das of Betanati in Mayurbhanj district. Das apparently sold the land to P Kiruthika, wife of B Prabhakaran on November 6, 2021 for Rs 6.45 crore and patta for the land was issued to Kiruthika in 15 days.
After the issue came to light, the Bhubaneswar tehsildar wrote a letter to the executive officer of the Lingaraj temple admitting that the land in question belonged to the shrine and was wrongly recorded in favour of a private person. Revision cases bearing number-520/2020, 521/2020 and 522/2020 were filed before Member, Board of Revenue in this regard by the executive officer.
Lingaraj land transfer blows up in Govt’s face
The land being property of Lord Lingaraj Trust Board in sabik ROR as held by Director of Land Records, Cuttack, has been restored in its pre-recording position. In his letter, the tehsildar said the land should not be used for any other reason till orders of revision cases are received.
That this transfer of title from one private person to another took place even when revision cases were filed before the Board of Revenue and construction was allowed has raised the hackles in political circles. BJP state president Samir Mohanty slammed the BJD government for the blatant construction on temple land.
“The land is near the city airport and not far from the residence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The state government has no ground to deny that the illegal construction was carried out without the knowledge of the administration,” he said.
Minister of State for Science and Technology Ashok Panda, also BJD MLA from Ekamra, initially feigned ignorance about the issue only to say that there is no question of compromise in the case of land belonging to the temple shrine.
Large scale encroachment of land belonging to Lingaraj temple was flagged by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its December, 2021 report. Although Lingaraj temple owns 1,523.879 acre land across the State, only 31.556 acre is under its actual possession.
The temple management is only aware of possession and encroachment of land relating to Bhubaneswar. It has no information on status of the land at other places. About 36.370 acre out of 69.423 acre of land in Bhubaneswar were under encroachment.