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Synopsis

After the Supreme Court's direction to the Allahabad High Court to urgently take up a writ petition filed by Maulana Mohamad Ali Jauhar Trust of former Minister Azam Khan against the Uttar Pradesh government's decision to take over the land of the Jauhar University in Rampur, the high court heard the matter today. 

The case was listed before the bench of Acting Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Kshitij Shailendra. The case will be heard again from 2 pm tomorrow.

Before the division bench, the SIT report filed by the UP government was cited. 

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra of the Supreme Court, on December 1, had also asked the high court to take up an interim application for urgent relief and consider it on its own merits expeditiously.

"It appears that the judgment was reserved 'some time ago'. However, the bench proceeded to release the matter from its part heard status on the ground that it needed further hearing and one of the members of the bench was sitting in the Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction. The proceedings were directed to be listed before an appropriate bench in the next cause-list. One of the Judges in the Division Bench which reserved the matter for judgment initially has since been transferred to the High Court at Calcutta. Hence, in any event, the proceedings will have to be listed before a fresh Bench to be nominated by the Chief Justice," the bench had noted.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the trust had submitted that there were several hundred girls in that school. “We filed the petition in January. They say you vacate, they should have passed the interim order," he had said.

The bench had suggested him to approach the acting chief justice of the high court but the counsel claimed that it was done several times.

To this, the bench had said, "In order to facilitate the petitioner in seeking access to judicial remedies, we direct that the writ petition be shown in the list of urgent admissions and be listed before the bench presided over by the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad. Since the status of the petition has been restored as an urgent admission petition by the order of this Court, we grant liberty to the petitioner to move the Bench presided over by the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad with an application for interim relief which should be considered on its own merits expeditiously".

The petition filed by the Executive Committee of the trust challenged the high court's order of July 14, 2023, declining any relief to it.

Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust has challenged the decision of Uttar Pradesh government to cancel the lease of land given to the university in Allahabad High Court.

During the then Samajwadi Party government of UP, the entire campus including the building of Murtaza Higher Secondary School of Rampur was given to Maulana Mohammad Johar Trust on a 99-year lease.

Case Title: Executive Committee Maulana Mohamad Ali Jauhar Trust Vs State of U.P. And 6 Others