Between October and December 2023, as Ayodhya ready for the consecration of the Ram temple, a agency referred to as Time Metropolis Multi State Cooperative Housing Society purchased a small parcel of land close to the Saryu river for Rs 1.13 crore.
Weeks later, it offered the land to the Adani group for greater than 3 times the worth – Rs 3.57 crore.
Time Metropolis is not any bizarre actual property agency.
It’s a part of the Time Metropolis group based by Chandra Prakash Shukla, a former chartered accountant with the Sahara group who joined the Bharatiya Janata Get together and was an MLA from Kaptanganj between 2017 and 2022. The group is run by Shukla’s former enterprise affiliate, Pankaj Pathak – a BJP member who has many pals within the state unit of the celebration.
The income made by the group – which faces allegations of dishonest and two FIRs in a police station in Lucknow – shine a lightweight on a side typically ignored in reviews about how the Ram temple is reworking Ayodhya. The land rush accompanying the temple development has drawn in massive companies just like the Adani Group and Lodha. It has additionally created a set of native beneficiaries, typically linked to the ruling celebration.
The losers are farmers who offered their land for reasonable in addition to the native ecology. The land in Majha Jamthara that was offered to the Adani group is a part of the environmentally delicate wetland close to Saryu, a habitat of the Sarus crane, gray heron and the Indian fox. Since December 2022, the federal government has prohibited any new development on this space.
In a response to Scroll’s questions, a spokesperson for the Adani group stated, “The transaction carried out by [one of its subsidiaries] is totally authorized and has been performed in accordance with all legal guidelines and rules. The corporate acquired land on the prevailing circle charges.”
The Adani land offers
Majha Jamthara is an enormous, unpopulated area between Faizabad, Ayodhya and the Saryu river – about 5 km from the Ram temple being constructed on the location the place the Babri Masjid as soon as stood. Twenty years in the past, most of this space was part of the riverbed. When the Saryu receded and adjusted course within the Nineteen Nineties, massive tracts got here underneath cultivation, principally by farmers from the Yadav group.
In October 2023, Time Metropolis purchased a hectare of land in Majha Jamthara. That land belonged to the households of Ghanseera Yadav and Kabootra Devi Yadav.
“After the Supreme Courtroom’s Ram Mandir judgement [in November 2019, which awarded the disputed land on which the Babri Masjid stood to the Hindu plaintiff], we heard that the federal government was going to accumulate land on this area,” stated Ajay Yadav, the grandson of Kabootra Devi, who runs a ironmongery store in Faizabad. “We weren’t positive whether or not we might be correctly compensated. So we determined to promote it to a non-public celebration beneath the market charge – some cash was higher than no cash.”
In February 2021, the Yadavs offered 0.56 hectares of the land they’d inherited to Sudha Dixit, a resident of Kanpur, for Rs 33.53 lakh over two transactions – considerably beneath the land’s circle charge worth, which then stood at Rs 77.46 lakh.
The circle charge is the minimal worth of land set by the district administration.
A typical witness in each these transactions was Suryabhan Singh, who’s a authorized advisor to Time Metropolis.
Greater than two years later, on October 31, 2023, Dixit offered this property to Time Metropolis for Rs 40 lakh over two sale deeds – that’s, two separate transactions. The witnesses in each the sale deeds have been Jaibhan Singh and Avinash Singh.
On November 6, 2023, the Yadavs offered one other land parcel of 0.44 hectare – this time instantly – to Time Metropolis for Rs 33 lakh. As soon as once more, this was decrease than the circle charge worth of Rs 58 lakh. The witnesses within the deal have been Avinash Singh and Sitaram Yadav.
Practically all witnesses in these three transactions are linked to native BJP politicians.
Suryabhan and Jaibhan are brothers of Chandrabhan Singh, a BJP employee and member of the Ayodhya zila panchayat. Singh instructed Scroll that he was inducted into the celebration in Might 2023 by Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak. Avinash is Chandrabhan’s son. Sitaram Yadav is the father-in-law of Suman Yadav, a BJP municipal councillor from Amaniganj in Faizabad.
Time Metropolis had paid a complete worth of Rs 73 lakh for the hectare of land owned by the Yadavs.
Inside three or 4 weeks, on November 25, it offered all of it to Ahmedabad-based Homequest Infraspace Personal Restricted for Rs 2.54 crore over two sale deeds.
Viren Rajeshkumar Makwana signed the deeds on HIPL’s behalf. His Linkedin profile describes him as “deputy supervisor authorized” at Adani Realty since January 2022.
In a letter to the Registrar of Firms dated October 31, 2023, HIPL declared Adani Properties Personal Restricted as its final holding firm. In an hooked up declaration, Adani Properties in flip listed Gautam Adani and his brothers Rajesh and Vinod Adani as “vital useful proprietor”.
On December 14, 2023, Bharat Bhushan Yadav, the son of Ghanseera Yadav, offered one other parcel of 0.4 hectares to Time Metropolis for Rs 39.92 lakh. Fifteen days later, HIPL purchased the parcel from the agency for Rs 1.02 crore.
As paperwork accessible with the state’s Stamp and Registration Division attest, Time Metropolis purchased the land in 4 transactions valued at Rs 1.13 crore. It offered the property to the Adani group for Rs 3.57 crore.
It earned a revenue of Rs 2.44 crore.
In its response to Scroll, the Adani spokesperson stated, “So far as the acquisition of the stated piece of land by Time Metropolis Multi State Cooperative Housing Society is worried, we’ve no feedback. We have now been absolutely indemnified by Time Metropolis Multi State Cooperative Housing Society for any actions and transactions made previous to the sale of the land to Homequest Infraspace Pvt Ltd.”
The Time Metropolis’s Adani offers have been half of a bigger sample. A abstract of transactions accessible on the web site of the Uttar Pradesh authorities’s Stamp And Registration Division reveals that between October 2019 and April 2022, Time Metropolis was concerned in 31 land gross sales in Majha Jamthara – in all, value Rs 2.15 crore. It offered 0.48 hectares carved into small plots at a mean of Rs 400 per sq. foot.
“The value of the transaction is set by the vendor and the customer,” stated Suryabhan Singh, Time Metropolis’s authorized advisor when requested about its transactions with the Adani group and others. “Whether or not excessive or low, the suitable stamp obligation is paid to the federal government.”
In Faizabad, Ajay Yadav didn’t know that Time Metropolis had offered his property to the Adani group and made a big revenue within the course of. “I’ve identified Pankaj Pathak and Suryabhan for no less than seven or eight years,” he stated. “Time Metropolis officers instructed me that they’d hold the land with themselves. It looks like a betrayal.”
Authorities land?
Not simply the worth of the transactions, questions are additionally being requested in regards to the legality of the sale of land to a non-public participant in an ecologically delicate area.
In 2019, a committee constituted by the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal had discovered that the realm across the Majha Jamthara wetland belonged to the state authorities.
The strong waste administration monitoring committee of the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal was first alerted about water air pollution in Majha Jamthara in Might 2019 by a priest in Ayodhya. The grievance by Jagatguru Ramanuj Acharya to Awanish Awasthi, then Uttar Pradesh further chief secretary, drew consideration to the state of the Saryu river in Ayodhya – particularly a dying water physique referred to as Sita Lake that skirted the Parikrama Marg in Majha Jamthara.
To handle the difficulty, the committee, headed by former Justice Devi Prasad Singh of the Allahabad Excessive Courtroom, requested the district administration to look into land data and determine the standing of the land as soon as traversed by the river alongside a stretch that’s 4-kilometre lengthy and half-a-kilometre large.
Primarily based on the reviews filed by the administration in Might and June 2019, the committee concluded that “your entire land within the income file until date has been recorded as submerged land in water”.
The land data, hooked up in an interim report by the committee, present {that a} main chunk of the land purchased by the Adani group in Majha Jamthara comes underneath this submerged space.
In accordance with the sale deeds, Adani’s 1.4 hectare property covers 16 plot numbers within the village: 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 65, 74, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 96, 153, 172 and 209.
The administration’s report stated that 12 of those plots – 57, 58, 74, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 96, 153, 172 and 209 – got here underneath the submerged space. It added that 90% of the realm outlined as a part of the Sita Lake was underneath water in land data way back to 1952.
The committee glided by authorized precedents set by the Supreme Courtroom and located that underneath the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, “after the date of vesting 1st July, 1952, your entire wetland, water reservoir, ponks, lakes, rivers, and so on., vests within the state authorities/gram panchayat”.
This land, it added, has been “forcibly occupied by land mafia, adopted by development at some locations with none change in income data”. For this, it pointed to plots 57 and 58 specifically. “Any encroachment made there requires to be eliminated by the district administration,” stated the report. “Such locations needs to be developed as recreation of public utility centres.”
The Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal committee’s report included an inspection report of the wetland ready by the Uttar Pradesh Air pollution Management Board in March 2019, which famous that “personal/unlawful colonies” are being constructed by “builders/landowners” within the space. One of many pictures of such development confirmed the Time Metropolis workplace in Majha Jamthara, constructed on plot quantity 57.
In December 2020, the Ayodhya administration filed a report on the motion it took on the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal committee’s suggestions. It contradicted the declare that plots 57 and 58 have been a part of the wetland. “These plots are registered within the identify of land account holders,” it stated. “Therefore this [is] not underneath the class of unlawful encroachment.”
Former Justice Singh of the Allahabad Excessive Courtroom countered the administration’s declare and stated his findings have been appropriate. “I stand by my report,” he stated.
Vishal Singh, the vice-chairman of the Ayodhya Growth Authority, instructed Scroll that just about 300 acres of land in Majha Jamthara is authorities land. “The remaining is personal land,” Singh stated. “The allocation of which plot is owned by whom is finished by the workplace of the District Justice of the Peace. As a improvement authority, we’ve declared that space as a ‘no new development zone’ since December 31, 2022.”
Even development on personal land on this area is managed. “It may solely be finished by nature-friendly materials like wooden, bamboo or grass,” Singh added.
Months earlier than new constructions have been barred within the space, the Ayodhya Growth Authority had taken motion in opposition to those that occupied components of the wetland.
In an anti-encroachment drive carried out in July 2022, the authority officers demolished a boundary wall of the Time Metropolis workplace. A month later, Pathak was declared one among the many 40 “colonisers” accused of “unlawful plotting” in Ayodhya by the authority.
“Unlawful plotting” is the time period for finishing up development and not using a structure plan authorized by the Ayodhya Growth Authority, defined the authority’s vice-chairman to Scroll.
Requested about Time Metropolis shopping for land at low costs and promoting it at a better charge to a non-public agency within the area, Vishal Singh appeared stunned. “I wish to know the entire case. I’ll lodge an FIR [first information report],” he stated. “How can somebody promote a colony like this in a wetland?”
Was the sale and buy of land by personal companies unlawful within the area? Singh stated: “It’s one thing we [the Ayodhya Development Authority] can’t management. That’s managed by the Stamp Act and the Switch of Property Act – that’s underneath the aegis of the District Justice of the Peace’s workplace.”
The Authority maintains that no development will probably be permitted in Majha Jamthara since it’s a wetland. Signboards to that impact have come up within the village, although the Time Metropolis workplace and its boundary wall nonetheless stands.
In accordance with the Adani Group, “as per authorized recommendation, the land is free from any authorized encumbrances”. But it surely stated it might comply with the rules if it decides to hold out any development. “Within the occasion that we do resolve to undertake any development on the stated land, we’ll diligently comply with all crucial procedures and acquire all required permits and permissions as mandated by legislation,” the Adani spokesperson stated.
Scroll despatched a set of inquiries to Nitish Kumar, the Ayodhya District Justice of the Peace. This story will probably be up to date if he responds.
‘They got here in large vehicles’
Farmers in Majha Jamthara say the officers of Time Metropolis have been visiting the realm for no less than six years, providing to take over the land they cultivated. Their strategies, a number of farmers alleged, typically grew to become aggressive.
“They might are available in 4 to 5 large vehicles, typically accompanied by the native police,” Sonu Yadav, a 35-year-old farmer, claimed. He stated his ailing father instructed him it was higher to half with the land “or else it might be forcibly taken.”
He stated Time Metropolis gave him Rs 3.2 lakh in 2018 for 2 bighas of land.
Not far-off is the Time Metropolis workplace. It stands on land that was as soon as cultivated by Hazarilal Sonkar, the grandfather of Dinesh Sonkar, a 32-year-old e-rickshaw driver in Faizabad.
He stated the officers of Time Metropolis “would come very ceaselessly, typically on daily basis within the week, and say the federal government would take your land for nothing”.
He stated Time Metropolis provided his household “Rs 2.5 lakh and three bissas of land elsewhere” in alternate for 3 bighas of land. Sonkar took the supply and signed an settlement in 2018. However he alleged he solely obtained the cash, not the land that was additionally imagined to have been a part of the deal.
Suryabhan Singh, the authorized advisor with the Time Metropolis group, stated Yadav and Sonkar weren’t house owners, however “unlawful occupiers” of the land. The agency paid them “to take away their occupation”.
“Lately, even in case you purchase a chunk of land and wish to take away individuals who occupy it, it’s a must to pay them,” he stated, including that the land was bought from the precise proprietor by a sale deed.
The web site of the Uttar Pradesh Stamp And Registration Division reveals that Time Metropolis purchased two properties in Majha Jamthara in Might 2018. Each from Ramanuj Pratap Shahi. One was a 3.6 hectare plot, with a circle charge worth of Rs 3.47 crore. It was purchased for Rs 15 lakh. The opposite was a 0.3 hectare plot with a Rs 68 lakh circle charge worth. The corporate acquired it for Rs 1.45 lakh.
Different farmers in Majha Jamthara stated they refused to signal agreements with Time Metropolis, though they’d heard that it was related to former BJP MLA Chandra Prakash Shukla.
Shukla, who resigned from the corporate in 2017, distanced himself from the transactions of Time Metropolis. “I’ve no place in that firm or hyperlinks to individuals who run it,” he instructed Scroll. He denied any data of the land offers with the Adani Group and accused his former affiliate Pankaj Pathak of dishonest him.
“I had a 25% stake within the group which they diluted and gave to their associates and kinfolk with out my consent,” Shukla alleged. “I reduce my ties with them in 2022 and don’t even wish to see their faces. They’re cheaters and thugs.”
Historical past of Time Metropolis
The Time Metropolis group was based in 2010 by Chandra Prakash Shukla, Pankaj Pathak and Santosh Singh. Shukla was a chartered accountant who had as soon as been an auditor on the Sahara group. Three corporations have been a part of the group: Timecity Actual Estates (India) Restricted, Timecity Retail Merchandise Personal Restricted and the Timecity Infrastructure & Housing Restricted.
The Time Metropolis Multi State Cooperative Housing Society was registered in 2015. In 2017, Shukla divested his stake within the three corporations and obtained a BJP ticket from the Kaptanganj meeting in Basti district, defeating Ram Prasad Chaudhary of the Bahujan Samaj Get together by practically 7,000 votes.
Shukla’s spouse, Asha, nonetheless holds one share every within the three corporations.
After Shukla’s success, Pathak too joined the BJP and tried unsuccessfully to get a ticket through the by-elections in Jalalpur Meeting in Ambedkar Nagar in 2019. One other try through the 2022 Meeting elections in UP proved futile.
“Pankaj Pathak is the preferred Brahmin face in our constituency from the BJP,” stated Akash Pandey, a Jalalpur resident who’s an office-bearer of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the coed wing of the BJP. “His brother, Saurabh, is a part of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.”
Within the many political posters shared on his Fb profiles, Pathak describes himself as a “senior BJP chief”. Whereas his photos with Chief Minister Adityanath are displayed most prominently, Pathak is ceaselessly seen within the firm of deputy CM Brajesh Pathak and Jal Shakti minister Swatantra Dev Singh.
In September 2023, photos shared by Pathak on Fb present the 2 politicians attended the birthday celebrations of Pathak’s kids at a high-end resort in Lucknow.
Chandrabhan Singh and Chandra Prakash Shukla of the BJP instructed Scroll that Pankaj is near Brajesh Pathak, as did Tej Narayan Pandey, the Samajwadi Get together chief in Ayodhya. “They got here to be on good phrases when Brajeshji was the chief in-charge of Ambedkar Nagar throughout his tenure because the Minister of Regulation and Justice [between 2017 and 2022],” stated Pandey of the ABVP.
Accusations of dishonest
On November 19, 2023, six days earlier than Time Metropolis offered land parcels in Ayodhya to the Adani group, the Gudamba police station in Lucknow booked Pathak and 16 different senior staffers on the Time Metropolis group for prison breach of belief, dishonest, forgery, voluntarily inflicting damage, wrongful confinement, prison intimidation and rioting.
The FIR was filed by Ganga Sagar Yadav, a Gorakhpur resident who instructed Scroll that he was considered one of Time Metropolis’s founding members. “I had invested Rs 20 lakh into the corporate and introduced investments value greater than Rs 5 crore into it from my family and friends,” stated Ganga Sagar.
The group provided each day and month-to-month funding schemes since 2010 that promised larger returns over one to 4 years, stated Ganga Sagar. “They might take the investor’s cash and purchase actual property with it,” he stated. “A number of years later, they’d promote the true property at a larger worth and that might be our return on funding and their revenue.”
Ganga Sagar added: “All of us obtained return on investments until 2018. However nothing since then. Now they don’t even reply our cellphone calls. At the least 1,000-2,000 individuals have invested within the group, which has not paid Rs 35 crore in returns.”
In accordance with the Gudamba FIR, when Ganga Sagar and different traders visited the Time Metropolis’s Lucknow workplace in March 2022, they have been harassed and intimidated by Pathak and different staffers, who “requested [them] to neglect their investments, else they’d be killed”. The administration claimed to have “connections with politicians and ministers”.
Buyers from throughout the nation instructed Scroll that they await their returns from Time Metropolis. This consists of Brijbhan Pal, a 35-year-old skilled from Mumbai, and Sushil Kumar, a Kanpur-based journalist affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
On December 28, 2023, a second FIR was filed in opposition to Time Metropolis in Gudamba, this time by Dharmendra, an investor from Deoria district. Like Ganga Sagar, Dharmendra’s grievance alleged that Time Metropolis had cast a Reserve Financial institution of India licence to promote its funding schemes. Scroll has seen a replica of no less than 10 different complaints by traders which have been filed with the police station within the matter which might be but to be registered as FIRs.
Suryabhan Singh, the authorized advisor who represented Time Metropolis in its sale deeds with the Adani group, has been accused in each the FIRs.
He alleged that the FIRs in opposition to Time Metropolis “cover essential info” and are “politically motivated”. “Anybody can go to a police station and file a grievance,” he stated. “I don’t know why I’ve been added as an accused. An organization’s insurance policies are framed by its board. I’m solely an advisor.”
Scroll despatched inquiries to the Time Metropolis group and Pankaj Pathak in regards to the allegations by farmers, the sale of land in an ecologically delicate area and the accusations of fraud in opposition to them. The story will probably be up to date in the event that they reply.
The story has been up to date to incorporate the response of the Adani group.