The film school has found itself in deep trouble with the Bombay High Court ordering it to surrender the 20-acre land in suburban Goregaon to the Maharashtra government.
Film school Whistling Woods, run by Bollywood filmmaker Subhash Ghai, has found itself in deep trouble with the Bombay High Court ordering it to surrender the 20-acre land in suburban Goregaon to the Maharashtra government. The film and television institute is located on the ground.
"In the interest of justice, we direct respondent number 3 and 4 (Ghai and Whistling Woods) to vacate 14.5 acre area immediately which shall be resumed by the state government. The remaining 5.5 acre where the institute is constructed shall be taken over by the government on July 31, 2014 by when all the ongoing courses at the film institute shall be completed," a division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Girish Godbole said.
The HC has also restrained Whistling Woods from granting admissions to students for courses, which will go beyond 2014.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Rajendra Sontakke and four other agriculturists from Latur and Osmanabad districts alleging "gross abuse of power" by former Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in allotting the land piece.
The bench has also directed Ghai to pay rent of Rs5.3 crore annually since the year 2000 when the director entered into a joint venture with the government to start a film institute.
The bench has, however, stayed its order for a period of eight weeks to permit the director-producer to approach Supreme Court.
Reacting to the Bombay HC judgment, Ghai issued a statement saying, "We respect the high court judgment and we will appeal to the Supreme Court for our lawful rights. We are at no fault and have done nothing wrong. We had a legal joint venture in 2002 with Film City to use the land for building a world-class film and media institute which was challenged by a PIL in court after 10 years and we hope we will get full justice from the Supreme Court."
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