Land row: AMU asserts ownership, ANN justifies taking possession of four hectares

: After the Aligarh Nagar Nigam took action on Wednesday to re-establish possession of a four-hectare land after 80 years, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has issued a statement asserting its legal ownership of the property and its intent to take effective measures, including legal recourse, to protect its “rights”.

However, when contacted, sub divisional magistrate (Koil) Digvijay Singh justified the Aligarh Nagar Nigam’s action. Singh stated that the revenue records do not mention AMU as the owner of the four-hectare land. He added that AMU was given sufficient opportunity to establish ownership but failed to do so, leading to the repossession of the land.

A press statement issued by AMU’s public relations office (PRO) on Thursday stated, “The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) wishes to make it unequivocally clear that the land over which the Municipal Corporation recently carried out on-site action is a legally owned property of the university.”

“The University holds all relevant documents, archival records, and legal evidence establishing its rightful ownership, which are being duly submitted before the appropriate legal forums. The land in question has been under the University’s ownership for several decades, and there has never been any question of its illegal occupation by the University,” the statement said.

“Aligarh Muslim University is a central university that adheres fully to legal norms, institutional propriety, and constitutional responsibility in all its affairs. The university is taking appropriate legal and administrative measures to safeguard its legitimate rights,” the press statement added.

The four-hectare land in question has no construction on it but was used by AMU as a ground for horse riding.

The AMU press statement further said, “The university assures all stakeholders that it remains committed to protecting its assets and institutional integrity, and is undertaking all necessary steps in this regard with due diligence.”

Refuting AMU’s claim, SDM (Koil) Digvijay Singh said, “Anybody claiming its right to the land needs to have proper mutation in revenue records, but there is no mention of AMU over the land in the revenue records. It is land owned by Nagar Nigam and is recorded as ‘banjar’ (barren) land in the revenue records.”

“We conducted complete proceedings and gave sufficient opportunity to AMU but they were unable to produce sufficient ownership documents, barring the document of a British period dating back to 1913. As such, the Nagar Nigam has taken possession,” Singh said. He added more such pieces of land remain to be reclaimed from AMU but proper verification is being done at present.

Meanwhile, a student leader Faizul Hasan criticised the AMU administration for letting go of the possession of “such precious land” of the university.

Former Rajya Sabha MP and All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz national president Ali Anwar Ansari claimed that this land, worth hundreds of crore rupees, was donated to AMU by the ruler of Pandawal, Bakar Ali Khan, a hundred years ago. He questioned the action by Aligarh Nagar Nigam and assured that the matter would be taken to the high court.

Ansari blamed the AMU administration for being in collusion with the district administration and allowing the BJP to dominate affairs at the university.

“This exercise began during the tenure of former VC Tariq Mansoor who later joined the BJP and became an MLC,” Ansari alleged.