The Altamount Road land was sold in 2003 for Rs21 crore — a fraction of the market price — and Wakf officials have said that since the skyscraper has already come up, they are willing to settle the dispute.
More than three years after questions were first raised if Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani’s Altamount Road skyscraper home, Antilla, is built on an illegally obtained Wakf land, the Wakf board has revived the issue.
After AU Pathan, a Pune-based member of the Wakf board, filed a complaint last week that the skyscraper, touted as the world’s most expensive private residence, has been built on land meant for a Yateemkhana or orphanage, the Union minority affairs ministry has referred the matter to the Central Vigilance Commission.
Allegations that the Altamount Road plot belonged to the Wakf was first made in 2007. After the issue was raised in the state cabinet, Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was then the chief minister, appointed former district judge AK Shaikh as a one-man inquiry commission to investigate the matter. The commission is still to submit its report.
“The inquiry is still on. This property is not the only complaint that the commission is inquiring into,” Maharashtra’s minister for minority affairs Naseem Khan said. “There were complaints from other parts of the state too, especially Marathwada.”
After the enactment of the act, properties belonging to Muslim religious trusts were transferred to the Wakf board. Such properties are meant only for religious use. But the trust that sold the property to the Ambanis, Karimbhoy Khoja Yateemkhana, has claimed that it comes under the jurisdiction of the Bombay Public Trust Act government by the charity commissioner and not the Wakf Act. A few other Muslim trusts too have challenged their transfer to the new agency.
Apart from the Ambani house, Pathan’s complaint also lists 25 other properties, including one bought by Vilasrao Deshmukh’s brother in Aurangabad. He has alleged that all these properties have been bought illegally from a Muslim trust. The value of these properties is estimated to be around Rs1,000 crore.
A Reliance Industries spokesperson said, “We bought the land from a trust, which is not part of the Wakf. The trust has gone to the high court challenging the claim by the Wakf board.”
The Altamount Road land was sold in 2003 for Rs21 crore — a fraction of the market price — and Wakf officials have said that since the skyscraper has already come up, they are willing to settle the dispute. “We may consider settling it for a reasonable amount; but it will be based strictly on the findings of the report,” Pathan said.
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