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Four months after the Ayodhya district magistrate declared a 0.645-hectare plot “nazul” land, the property “owner” sold it to Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra (SRJTK) for Rs 23.61 crore in April 2024, court and registry documents exclusively accessed by The Quint show. The SRJTK is the trust that has built and runs Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The problem here is that the ownership of “nazul” land rests with the government and it can’t be sold or bought without explicit permission of the government. Typically, it can only be leased out.
It has remained a mystery how Mahant Murli Das, a seer at Hanumangarhi temple in Ayodhya, sold the government land to the Trust when the district magistrate, a member of the Trust, opposed Murli Das’ ownership rights. At the time, the DM was Nitish Kumar.
In the sale deed, Murli Das gave an undertaking that a legal dispute related to the land was pending in a court. However, the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Board’s order shows that the case was settled months before the sale deed, signed by Champat Rai on behalf of the Trust as its general secretary. The board said that it was indeed government land.
The land is located at Kot Ramchandra, Haveli Awadh, in Ayodhya.
This month, Ayodhya has been rocked by allegations of corruption in Ram Temple donations. The Uttar Pradesh government has formed a special investigation team to probe these charges. On June 25, eight people involved in counting cash and other donations at the temple were arrested. Facing allegations, Trust general secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra have since resigned.