The court asked for the entire revenue records after finding out that the land of Banke Bihari Ji Maharaj temple in Mathura was changed to a ‘graveyard’ in the ownership records.
The bench of Justice Saurabh Srivastava passed this order on a petition filed by Sri Bihari Ji Seva Trust (of Mathura). Sri Bihari Ji Seva Trust (of Mathura) filed a petition and the court ordered to produce the entire revenue records after the temple land was shown as a ‘graveyard’ in the ownership documents.
The petitioner trust, which manages the temple of Bake Bihari Ji Maharaj in Mathura, approached the court with a grievance. They claimed that the state revenue records had wrongly shown the temple land as a graveyard since 2004. The trust sought the correction of this error and the restoration of the temple’s ownership over the land.
The trust filed a writ petition in the court, asking for a speedy resolution of their issue. They said that they had applied for correcting the revenue entry that wrongly recorded the temple land as a graveyard. They requested the court to order the authorities to rectify this mistake and acknowledge the temple’s rightful ownership over the land.
The trust’s lawyer argued that the land belonged to Banke Bihari Maharaj since ancient times, but in 1994, a man named Bhola Khan Pathan conspired with the revenue officials and registered the land as a graveyard.
The temple trust learned about this and objected to the registration, but the matter reached the Waqf Board. A seven-member team from the board investigated and confirmed that the registration was wrong, but the temple’s name was still not restored on the land. This prompted the trust to file this petition.
The court was not satisfied with the explanation given by the revenue authorities and summoned the tehsildar to appear in person. The court wanted to know how and why the entries of the land were changed from the temple to the graveyard. The court also asked for the details of the proceedings that were carried out by the revenue authorities to make this change.
The tehsildar submitted a personal affidavit to the court, but it did not answer the court’s questions. The court wanted to know how the land’s ownership was changed from the temple to the graveyard in the revenue records. The court also wanted to know why the temple’s name was removed from the records of rights of the base year, i.e. 1359 Fasli, where it was recorded as bhumidhar with transferable rights. The court was not satisfied with the affidavit and asked for more clarification from the tehsildar.
In view of this, the Court directed the Sub-Divisional Officer to come up before the Court with the entire records on September 5.
Case title – Sri Bihari Ji Seva Trust vs. State Of U.P. And 4 Others [WRIT – C No. – 27739 of 2022]
Live Law https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/allahabad-high-court/allahabad-high-court-banke-bihari-temple-land-ownership-changed-graveyard-entire-revenue-records-235559
Name; Shreya Modanwal, Shambhunath institute of law,Jhalwa,Prayagraj, 3rd yr.intern under Legal Vidhiya
