The man who almost stalled Mukesh Ambani’s $2-billion dream home by alleging that it stands on wakf land has been transferred by the Maharashtra government.
Hearing a petition seeking restoration of the plot to the Maharashtra State Board of Wakf, the Supreme Court had refused on Thursday to intervene in the matter pending before Bombay High Court.
The next morning, the board’s chief executive officer, A.R. Shaikh, was transferred. The 27-storey building — tagged the world’s most expensive home — is coming up on a plot that was originally wakf property but it was sold to Ambani.
The wakf board headed by Shaikh had alleged last year that the sale of the land in 2002 was illegal. An inquiry was instituted against it’s then chairman, M.A. Aziz, who was accused of selling the property at Rs 21 crore, much below the market rate of Rs 400 crore, without the board’s permission.
Five years later, in October 2007, the high court stayed a Maharashtra government’s decision to cancel sale of the land. The government had held that the 4,500-square-metre plot was wakf property and could not be sold.Only seven storeys of Ambani’s house had been completed then.
Today, the building, named Antilla, is 17 storeys high and construction of the remaining 10 is on at full swing. “The high court order had not given any instruction for a stay on Antilla’s ongoing construction,” a wakf board trustee said.
Shaikh was scheduled to file an application in the high court seeking a stay on the construction this week. “I am a government officer. I will comply with the government order.
If the government does not want me, I will not stay here,” Shaikh told The Telegraph today. He had joined the wakf board on deputation from the rural development department.
A deputation is usually for three years, but in Shaikh’s case, it has lasted one and a half.
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