By IANS
Mumbai : Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani seems to have gotten into legal trouble after the Maharashtra government termed as "illegal" the transaction involving the land on which his 27-storey residence in south Mumbai is being built.
The Maharashtra Wafk Board, the custodian of Muslim religious properties, had sold a 4,532 square metre plot on the upscale Altamount Road in Malabar Hills, where Ambani's glass and steel "mansion-in-the-air" is coming up.
Terming the deal to acquire the land illegal, the Maharashtra Revenue and Forest Department issued a notice to the state Wakf board, asking it to take back the possession.
The government has also questioned the role of the state Wakf board chief M.A. Aziz and issued him a show cause notice, asking him to clarify his position on the land deal within 15 days.
Sources at the state secretariat said Antilia Commercial Pvt Ltd., an Ambani-owned firm, had bought the property in 2003 from an orphanage trust for Rs.210 million.
Work on the skyscraper, which will house four floors of family quarters, guest apartments, a mini theatre, a helipad and six floors of parking space, is already at an advanced stage.
While the state revenue and forest department said inquiries into the land deal revealed that it was illegal, Aziz insists the plot was just an "endowment" property owned by an orphanage and so the Wafk Board has no control over it.
But government officials believe otherwise.
"Contrary to what Aziz claims, the Altamount Road property, which was earlier an orphanage, belongs to the Wafk Board. Aziz is just trying to misguide the authorities by saying that it was private property," an official said.
Meanwhile, the government has issued special orders to audit the Wafk board's accounts and has directed that four other properties of the board be taken back as they were all sold "illegally".
A Reliance Industries spokesperson refused to comment.