Court cancels land allotment to Bachchan, says he is no farmer

3 June, 2007:

A court in Faizabad in northern India has ruled that farmland was illegally allotted to Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.

Amitabh Bachchan had bought the 90,000-square-foot plot from a village council in Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. It was registered in his name in 1983.

Bachchan claimed that the land was being used for agriculture and hence he should be treated as a farmer. But the court declared that Amitabh Bachchan is not a farmer and that registering the land in his name amounted to fraud.

Earlier, villagers had protested against the land allotment to the actor on the ground that Amitabh Bachchan was neither a farmer nor a resident of the area. They said they had the first claim to the village land as residents.

In 2006, the District Magistrate of Barabanki had ordered to cancel the land allotment to Amitabh Bachchan.

Barabanki District Magistrate Aashish Goyal had declared that the mode of transfer of land to Bachchan was illegal and directed to lodge an FIR in the matter. Bachchan then filed an appeal with the revenue court in Faizabad town.

Following the order by the Faizabad court cancelling allotment of the farmland to Amitabh Bachchan, the land in question was quickly restored to the village council. And, officials say that Amitabh Bachchan could now be prosecuted for fraud.

Amitabh Bachchan, in a career spanning over 40 years, has acted in more than 140 movies. He topped a website poll conducted in 1999 by BBC News to find the greatest star of the millennium, beating such Hollywood legends as Marlon Brando and Charlie Chaplin.

In 2006, Amitabh Bachchan was awarded France’s highest civilian honour, the Legion d’Honneur.