New Delhi: The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) on Wednesday served notice to the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) cancelling its land allotment and has given it 15 days to either return the land or pay its market price estimated at Rs 250 crore.
News18 accessed a copy of the letter stating that the dispute pertains to 1994.
According to college authorities, the land was allotted to IMT Ghaziabad for the first time in the 1980s. At the time, a portion of it was disputed between farmers and the Ghaziabad authority.
“Then the authority had told us that once the dispute is resolved, the land will become IMT’s. However, in 1994, the GDA had asked us to either pay for the land or return it. But both parties checked their records and could not find any receipt of payment. Nobody brought up the matter in the last 25 years,” said IMT Ghaziabad Director Abhijit Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya is currently thinking of legal recourse as the land in question is in the middle of the campus and has student hostels built on it.
“Without residential options, we can’t run a business school. Moreover, how will we function if the middle of campus is not ours?” he asked. “We have approved the site map every year, the matter was never brought up then.”
IMT Ghaziabad is owned by the family of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath. The institute is currently headed by Kamal Nath’s son, Nakul.
The complaint was initially filed by councillor Rajesh Tyagi in March. In a letter written to the governor of Uttar Pradesh, the complainant had claimed that the land belonged to the state-run Chowdhary Charan Singh University (CCSU) and he had evidence to prove that the IMT grabbed it through fraudulent means.
“Documents reveal that the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC) in 1973 allotted the IMT a plot near the Rajnagar Extension. The institute was supposed to be built on this land,” Tyagi said.
Following the complaint, Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, also the CCSU Chancellor, wrote to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to initiate a probe into the case.
The GDA had constituted a committee under the development agency’s secretary to probe the encroachment allegation. In its report, the committee had mentioned that IMT had encroached on the 10,000 sq m plot.
Regarding the allegation of affiliation, the Chaudhary Charan Singh University has formed a four-member committee to look into the matter.
Last week, an aide of Kamal Nath had said the charges levelled by the BJP leader were baseless and the probe was an aim to harass the chief minister’s family. The IMT website reveals that the prestigious institute was founded by Kamal Nath’s father, Mahendra Nath, in the 1970s.
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