Noted film maker and Yash Bharati awardee Muzaffar Ali is locked in a legal battle with Forest department officials making claims over a `disputed land’ in lakhimpur Kheri.
Claing possession over the said land, Ali wrote to SDM Gola in Kheri asking him not to decide the dispute as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had assured him of setting up a committee to resolve the matter.
Ali had also filed a RTI with the Public Information Officer (PIO) at the office of DM, lakhimpur Kheri seeking several querries about the land. On failing to get satisfactory information, he has now filed an appeal with State Information Commissioner (SIC) Hafiz Usman.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Gola Range (South Kheri Forest Range) had filed an appeal with the local SDM court in Kheri, asking him to make necessary changes in land record regarding the possession of `Gata No-10, of 11.63 acres of land in which 10 acres was wrongly mentioned in the name of Rajkumar Muzaffar Ali and his brothers Kunwar Raza Ali Khan, and Kunwar Ameer Ali Khan.
The SDM said that the opposite party (Muzaffar Ali and his brothers) connived with some officials and got the 10 acres of the land registered in their names thereby maing an entry into the official records.
The DFO in his appeal made in the SDM court also mentioned that how on October 11, 1952, a total of 450 acres of land in Razanagargrant Pargana Hyderabad in Gola was registered in the government’s name and later transferred to the Forest department on March 29, 1954.
The DFO claimed that Rani Kaniz Haider, wife of Syed Sazid Hussain (Muzaffar Ali’s father), had moved court against the government order but her claims were dismissed. He said that government through it’s order had directed officials at Kheri to make entry into revenue record transferring above 450 acres land to the Forest department but the opposite party somehow connived and got 10 acres of land registered in their name.
According to SIC Hafiz Usman, who claimed to have directed the officials to produce relevant documents, said that Muzaffar Ali had filed an RTI seeking information regarding disputed 10 acres of land like who was the owner of the land in revenue records, has any case been filed with the SDM court in the last 12 years, since how long has the land been `disputed’, if any notice has been served regarding the land by the DM’s office, and what efforts were made by Forest department so far etc. It has also been asked that while the DFO claims that the land was worngly transferred with official `connivance’, did the DFO lodge any case against any official so far.