NEW DELHI, Sept 16: A school friend of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has got his land back which had been held for decades by two construction firms linked to a BJP Member of the Maharashtra Assembly, just days after he met Mr Modi and sought his intervention in the dispute.
The 81-year old Asgar Ali Vora who had studied in the BN School in Vadnagar in Gujarat around the time Mr Modi was in the same school as a child, and currently living in Mira Road in Maharashtra, had met Mr Modi in Delhi on September 8 with an appeal for a CBI probe into the dispute over a piece of land in Palghar district.
Vohra had said the matter concerned a 2,810 square metre prime plot in Navghar in Bhayander East that he had bought in 1989. He alleged that it was encroached upon by two firms, Swayam Builders and Seven Eleven Constructions, in 2011, the two firms linked to BJP MLA Narendra Mehta.
Vora mentioned that he has been pursuing the matter with various government agencies for the past 15 years. He also noted that he received a positive response from the Prime Minister during the meeting.
Following the meeting with the PM, government officials took up the matter. On Tuesday, Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary Shrikar Pardeshi held a meeting at the ministry. The meeting was attended by Vora, Mehta, Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation Commissioner Radha Vinod Sharma, and Town Planner Purushottam Shinde.
At the meeting itself, Mehta submitted a letter to the Town Planning Department stating that he was relinquishing possession of the disputed land and surrendering the construction permission granted to him. In the letter, Mehta also mentioned that the land had been purchased from Mervin Fernandes in 2019, and secured construction permission on April 17, 2026.
In a separate letter to the Police Commissioner, the MLA said his firms were withdrawing their earlier complaint against Vora because a settlement has been reached between the two parties.
Official letters confirming the withdrawal of the police complaint and the surrender of the construction permit were submitted to the respective authorities just ahead of a crucial municipal hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
(Manas Dasgupta)