Two sisters claim ownership of land offered for Ayodhya mosque

Rani Kapoor alias Rani Baluja and Rama Rani Punjabi, two sisters moved the Allahabad High Court, claiming the ownership of five-acre land allotted to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya.

Lucknow: Two Delhi-based sisters moved the Allahabad High Court Wednesday claiming the ownership of five-acre land allotted to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya in accordance with the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case.

The petition before the Lucknow bench of Allahabad HC was filed in the court's registry and is likely to come up for hearing on February 8.

Rani Kapoor alias Rani Baluja and Rama Rani Punjabi have said in the writ petition that their father Gyan Chandra Punjabi had come to India during partition in 1947 from Punjab and settled in Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district.

They have claimed that their father was allotted 28-acre land in Dhannipur village by the Nazul Department for five years which he continued to possess beyond that period. Later, his name was included in the revenue records, the petitioners have said.

However, his name was struck down from the records against which their father filed an appeal before the Additional Commissioner, Ayodhya, which was allowed, they have claimed.

The petitioners further claimed that the consolidation officer again removed their father's name from the records during consolidation proceedings.

Against the order of the consolidation officer, an appeal was preferred before the Settlement Officer of Consolidation, Sadar, Ayodhya, but without considering the said petition, the authorities have allotted five-acre of their 28-acre land to the Waqf Board for the constructing of the mosque, they said.

The petitioners have demanded the authorities be restrained from transferring the land to the Sunni Waqf Board till the pendency of dispute before the settlement officer.

The state government has allotted five-acre land to the Sunni Waqf Board in Dhannipur village for construction of the mosque in compliance with Supreme Court direction on November 7, 2019 in the Ram Janmabhoomi- Babri mosque title suit.

PTI