A Man Much Converted

• 2000-2001: Bachchan buys agricultural land in Pavna, Lonavala, Maharashtra, claiming he is a farmer.
  
  
• Dec '04: Activist Baba Adhav launches agitation against the land acquisition.
  
  
• Apr '05: Outlook exposes the land deal. The Pune district collector orders Maval sub-divisional magistrate to inquire into Bachchan's farmer claim.
  
  
• Oct '05: Bachchan submits affidavit claiming he is a farmer since he owns farmland in Barabanki, UP.
  
  
• Mar '06: Bachchan asked by Maval SDM to prove ownership of Barabanki land through original documents.
  
  
• Mar '06: Barabanki DM receives application from Amitabh to update land records and certify the allotment of land to him in Daulatpur village. An inquiry by district authorities reveals land records were tampered in March 2006. 'Allotment' of land stayed by Barabanki DM. Later a new DM, Rama Shankar Sahu, lifts the stay and "returns" the land to Amitabh.
  
  
• Jun 1, '07: Case reopened. Faizabad revenue court upholds the order, cancelling the land allotment. The court rules that the land records were also tampered with.
  
  
• Jul 19, '07: Bachchan writes to Pune divisional commissioner Nitin Kareer declaring that he is relinquishing the land in Pavna and asks him to return it to the original owners-the farmers.
  
  
• Dec 11, '07: While ruling out framing of criminal charges against Bachchan, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court observes he has no claim to the 2.5 bighas of land in Barabanki. The judge also orders correction of forgeries in the land records. The UP government has challenged the order restraining it from pressing criminal charges against Bachchan.
  
  
• Mar 24, '08: Bachchan writes to Karir, this time seeking possession of the land he had earlier donated. The Bachchans suddenly recall they were given permission to use the land for non-agricultural purposes in 2004! This fact never surfaced in the inquiries of the Pune district collectorate. The Bachchans now plan to build a tourist resort at Pavna.

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• Joshi's legal note points out that the then Maval sub-divisional officer's query on Bachchan's status as a farmer was "absolutely irrelevant and incompetent" because only the tehsildar can raise such a query under the rules. If, as implied, the query about his farmer status was illegal, why did Bachchan bother to present backdated and forged land records to prove his "farmer" status in Barabanki, UP? It took six notices from the Pune/Maval authorities asking him to present evidence of his farmer status before he chose to respond to the seventh one, that too without original documents from UP.
  
  
• The Bachchans now recall that they had applied for land conversion way back in July 2002. The permission, they claim, was granted in July 2004. This is quite contrary to what former Maval SDO Bhanudas Gaikwad told Outlook. The conversion, he says, could not have happened since the mutation entry was not complete when he was inquiring into the land acquisition in 2005. He maintains that minus this crucial entry no conversion is possible.
  
  
• Even if the conversion did take place in 2004, that in no way puts the 2001 purchase in the clear. Did Bachchan, a non-agriculturist, declare himself a "farmer" then to purchase the land, then had the land use converted and become an "industrialist"? But then if the Big B was already an "industrialist" in the Maval taluka records, why did he take all the trouble to forge documents in Barabanki and prove his farmer status after the Pune collectorate ordered an inquiry into the acquisition in 2005?
  
  
• While the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act states that only a farmer can purchase agricultural land, the collector can grant permission to a non-agriculturist if such a buyer can satisfactorily produce bona fides that he requires the land for non-agricultural uses. In Bachchan's case, the then collector's permission was not sought when he bought the land in 2000-2001. Independent legal experts wonder how a post-dated legality of the sale can be valid.