AP asset listed for sale as AgriGold land

Visakhapatnam: In a major goof-up, the land for which the government is fighting in Visakhapatnam is being auctioned as the private property of the Agri Gold group. The state government is fighting in the High Court with a mosque committee for ownership of 2,162 acres of Inam land (land given as grant or gift rewarding the extraordinary service rendered to a ruler or princely state) in picturesque Yarada, Surveys No. 1 to 81. The High Court has ordered a stay on proceedings on these lands which is valued at thousands of crores.

The land case has been in the courts since 2000 when the Yarada Mokadasar Association that runs the Alamgir mosque on a hillock near Vizag harbour approached the High Court claiming rights over it, after the then state government began issuing title deeds to encroachers on the land.

The government contends that the land belongs to it and is in its possession. But around 80 acres of this land have now been put up for auction by the police to recover dues from Agri Gold Group to pay victims.

"While the government is fighting in the court that Yarada land belongs to it, how can the  said land be auctioned as the private property of Agri Gold group? The investigating agencies should have avoided attaching these lands. When the government allotted a few acres of land in Yarada for a private port, and it was brought to the notice of the then collector that there is an ongoing court case, the collector had given us in writing that the allotment will be done subject to the verdict or final outcome of the ongoing case in the High Court. When the Agri Gold Group auction was brought to the notice of the authorities, there was no response," said president of the Yarada Mokhasadars Welfare Association, Mohiddin Basha.

The disputed land had been gifted by the Nizams of Hyderabad to Sheik Hussein Sahib in 1771 so that proceeds from it could be used to maintain the Alamgir mosque. Another 5,300 acres of land in Devada village in Parawada mandal was similarly gifted to the Ishaq Madina dargah of the 17th-century Sufi saint Syed Ali Madina which is situated on the same hillock.

While the government issued an order in 2008 clarifying that the land in Devada belonged to the Wakf Board, it issued no such order regarding the Yarada lands.