Last week, two Delhi-based sisters moved the Allahabad High Court, claiming ownership of five acres of land in Ayodhya that were allotted for construction of a mosque in accordance with the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case in 2019.
The petition had been filed before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court by two Delhi-based sisters, Rani Kapoor Punjabi and Rama Rani Punjabi. The duo had claimed ownership of the five-acre land, claiming that their father had bought it, but his name had been expunged from the land records.
On Monday, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed the petition filed over the land dispute in Dhannipur village as the petitioners' lawyer sought to withdraw it. The order to junk the petition came from Justices D.K. Upadhyay and Manish Kumar. The sisters had filed the petition through senior advocate H.G.P. Parihar. For the state government, additional advocate general Ramesh Kumar Singh had opposed the plea, saying that the plot numbers allotted for the mosque were different from the plots the petition referred to.
Then expressing concern with Parihar for filing the petition in a cursory manner without ascertaining correct facts, the bench dismissed it.
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The sisters had claimed that their parents came from Punjab in Pakistan to Faizabad (now Ayodhya). Their father, Gyan Chandra Punjabi, became employed with the Nazul department. He had gained a land deed for 28 acres of land for Rs 1,560 in Dhannipur village (Sohawal tehsil). Though his name was part of the records, the land continued to be used by those who had held it earlier. Later, their father’s name was also expunged from the local land records, following which a dispute was filed before the local land consolidation officer.
On Friday, the local land consolidation officer in Dhannipur, Rajesh Pandey, said the disputed property was land in Shekpur Jafar, a village neighbouring Dhannipur.
