In an embarrassment to President Pratibha Patil, a revenue court in Amravati has ordered that the names of her relatives, including her husband Devisingh Shekhawat, be deleted from the title of a disputed piece of agricultural land in a village.
The order by Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) Ashok Amankar, in quasi-judicial authority, came on a petition by one Kishore Bansod, who had claimed that the Shekhawat clan had allegedly got their names included in the land title.
Reacting to the order, Devisingh Shekhawat said there is no question of his family taking anyone's land.
"Remeasuring the land is part of the order but it also says that the record should be changed to include the farmer's name(Kishore Bansod) as well," he said, adding, "There is no question of taking over the land."
Pratibha's son and Congress MLA Rajinder Shekhawat, denied his family had been accused of land grabbing in Maharashtra.
"The order of Sub Divisional Officer was that a fresh measurement of the land will take place...believe me, there is no such issue of land grabbing," Shekhawat told PTI.
He said the land in question relates a four-decade-old case which was filed by his grandfather. Since the case is old, the land records were not available, he said.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said he would not be in a position to react without knowing the details.
In a recent order, the SDO had directed that the entry relating to the names of six persons belonging to the Shekhawat family be deleted from the official land records.
The six respondents in the case include Devisingh Shekhawat, five of his relatives, the local Revenue Inspector and village 'Talathi', a lower-level official who maintains land records.
