The Uttar Pradesh government is all set to take over the management and control of Jauhar University in Rampur owned by Samajwadi party parliamentarian Mohammad Azam Khan.  The district revenue authority/district magistrate of Rampur has already ordered the transfer of the title ownership of 1,400 acres of land in possession of the university in favour of the UP government. 

The district revenue court, after hearing the case against the university, also ordered the take-over of the land excess of 12 acre owned by the university.

With the order of the district revenue authority, the land left with the university is only 12.5 acres. 

Besides Azam Khan, his son, a former SP MLA, is in jail since February last year in a forged birth certificate case. Azam Khan’s wife Tazeen Fatma, a SP MLA, was also in jail but she was released on bail recently.

The UP Revenue Board in January 2019 had cancelled its earlier order allowing Rampur’s Jauhar University to integrate 1,400 acres of land belonging to village gram sabha. It has also ordered the divisional commissioner to probe the allegation of encroachment levelled against the university.

In 2017, the district magistrate of Rampur had sent a report against Azam Khan to the state government in a matter of land-grabbing.

In his affidavit to the Board of Revenue, the district magistrate had said that Jauhar University was a completely commercial institute, run by Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust owned by Azam Khan.

The district magistrate had categorically stated that even though the institute was built on government land, it was not doing any charitable work and the land given to the university belonged to the gram samaj, and was supposed to be used for developmental works.

The district magistrate contended that the land was illegally transferred in 2012-13 to Jauhar Trust.

Jauhar University was the dream project of Azam Khan, which was mooted in 2004 by the then Samajwadi party government headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav. The UP government   was also to provide a grant of Rs 100 crore to the private university, as per a bill passed by the state assembly in 2004. The bill was, however, embroiled in controversy and the then Governor TV Rajeswar had refused to grant his assent to it.

The foundation of the university was laid by the then Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2006 and it was formally inaugurated by the then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in September 2012.

Ever since its inception, the Jauhar university project has been mired in controversy with allegations of land-grabbing against Azam Khan by the local farmers. Azam Khan was a powerful minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government headed by Yogi Adityanath ordered a probe into the matter after assuming office in March 2017. In 2019, as many as 26 farmers had filed complaints against Azam Khan that their land was illegally grabbed by the SP leader. Later the Rampur district magistrate had declared Azam Khan a land mafia.