Narayan Rane under high court scanner for denotification of agriculture land

The Bombay high court today directed state industries minister Narayan Rane to file a reply by July 4 on a public interest litigation alleging that he illegally released 39.25 acres of land belonging to a temple trust at Sinnar in Nashik district.

A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice D G Karnik was hearing a petition filed by Sinnar resident Sanjay Deshpande alleging that Rane, in his capacity as revenue minister then, did not have powers to release portion of the land.

According to the petition, Rane had passed an order of converting 39.25 acres of prime agricultural land belonging to the Chitleshwar Devasthan Trust to non-agricultural land.

"This order brought the land, which did not even come under the Revenue department's jurisdiction, into tax bracket and facilitated its sale by some relatives of the deceased trustees," Deshpande claimed.

Within five days of Rane's order in November last year, the land was sold.

"The impact of this order was that the land was treated as personal property and not the property of the Trust," the petition alleged.

Chitleshwar Devsthan Trust had 73 acres and 11 gunthas of land. One Arvind Vaidya and 15 others had approached Rane, who was revenue minister then, and sought its release saying that it belonged to their ancestors.