BERHAMPUR: The Orissa High Court has directed the commissioner of Endowments, Odisha to look into the alleged sale of Raghunath temple land in Chikiti Notified Area Council (NAC) by mafia, that has landed the buyers in legal hassles, within three weeks. The direction came after a bench of the HC heard a petition filed by land buyers who have been running from pillar to post for the Record of Rights (RoR).
Sources said, around 2.47 acre of temple land was allegedly sold off by land mafia fraudulently to some unsuspecting people in Chikitipentho of Ganjam district. Though some buyers have constructed houses on the land, they have not received any rights over it.
The area comprising housing business establishments and three nationalised banks is situated next to the main road in Chikitipentho. The land owners alleged that they have been cheated by the mafia in connivance with the sub-registrar, endowments and revenue officials.
They further alleged that they failed to get the RoR as the land continues to be in the name of temple and is yet to be transferred.
The fraud came to the fore last year when the land mafia also converted a land gifted to the temple into plotting scheme and sold over a dozen of plots making crores of rupees.
As the plot owners did not get the RoR from the the tehsil or sub-registrar’s office, they approached the revenue and endowments officials several times, but to no avail.
Sensing trouble, some buyers Sridhar Sahu, Tripati Sahu and Bibhudendra Padhy filed a writ petition before Orissa High Court on December 31, 2022 with the relevant documents.
“The land mafia have plotted the lands of temple and the gifted lands too. They are influential people and we are not in a position to challenge them. So we knocked the doors of the court,” the buyers alleged.