On Sunday when Nripendra Misra, former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and now head of the Ram Janmabhoomi Tirth Kshetra Trust’s Temple Construction Committee, met the trustees and experts in Ayodhya to take stock of temple works, the Samajwadi Party and the Aam Aadmi Party alleged fraud and corruption over the purchase of a piece of land by the Trust on March 18 this year.
In a press conference in Lucknow, Sanjay Singh, AAP’s in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, and a Member of Parliament, said “The piece of land in Ayodhya is registered with number 243, 244 and 246. Its value is Rs 5.80 crore. It was purchased from Kusum Pathak and Harish Pathak by Sultan Ansari and Ravi Mohan Tiwari for Rs 2 crore. The purchase had two witnesses — Anil Mishra, a member of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, and Rishikesh Upadhyay, who is the Mayor of Ayodhya. It was purchased at 7.10 pm. In the next five minutes, the same land was bought by Ram Janmabhoomi Trust and Champat Rai for Rs 18.5 crore from Ansari and Tiwari. Rs 17 crore was transferred through RTGS.”
In a statement issued late night, the Trust said, the current sellers had a registered agreement years ago at a price, and after the bainama (sale deed) on March 18, they sold it to the Trust. “After the Supreme Court order, a lot of people started coming to Ayodhya to purchase land, and as the UP government is also purchasing a lot of land for development works, the land price increased suddenly. The land on which…
