Gujarat High Court dismissed appeals by Asaram ashram against land takeover in Ahmedabad. Court upheld acquisition of Motera land near Narendra Modi Stadium for proposed Sardar Patel Sports Complex.
The Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed appeals by the ashram of self-styled godman Asaram in Ahmedabad challenging the takeover of land meant for sports development ahead of the 2030 Commonwealth Games.
The land in question over 45,000 sq metres on which the ashram stands in Motera, near the Narendra Modi Stadium, is slated to be used for the proposed Sardar Patel Sports Complex.
Sant Shri Asharam Trust, which manages the ashram, had approached the High Court’s division bench after a single-judge bench rejected its petitions. Those original petitions had contested eviction notices issued by revenue authorities. The notices were based on allegations that the trust had encroached on land and violated conditions tied to the government land allotment and its regularisation.
The division bench, led by Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice DN Ray, dismissed the trust’s appeals. The judges said the trust not only breached the terms of the allotment/regularisation grants, but also encroached on a significant stretch of open land around the plots.
The bench also noted that the trust had, over the years, illegally occupied land from the Sabarmati River belt.
Rejecting the trust’s prayers, the court said:
“In the totality of the facts and circumstances of the present case, none of the prayers made in the writ petition can be granted. There is no question of regularisation of the riverbed land encroached upon by the petitioner. Any such indulgence will be contrary to the decision of the apex court,”
The bench also turned down the trust’s request for a four-week stay to enable it to challenge the order before a higher court. The government’s pleader informed the court that the petitioner would be served a fresh eviction notice, giving it additional time to comply.
The trust had challenged an order of the Gujarat Revenue Tribunal, which had dismissed its plea contesting notices issued by the mamlatdar requiring handover of possession of the land.
The trust argued that the eviction proceedings were premeditated, contending that the land was being taken under the guise of encroachment and alleged breach of allotment conditions—purportedly to support the government’s plan to develop a sports enclave and use the land for the Commonwealth Games.
Asaram, who is 84, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 for raping a minor girl at his ashram in Rajasthan. In January 2023, he was also sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Gandhinagar in another rape case.
The Gandhinagar court convicted him in a case registered in 2013 involving a woman disciple from Surat, whom the court said he raped on multiple occasions between 2001 and 2006, when she was living at his Motera ashram.
FOR MORE LEGAL UPDATES FOLLOW US ON YOUTUBE