Officials in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday questioned film star Amitabh Bachchan’s decision to donate a plot of land at Daulatpur village in Barabanki district, saying he had no right to do so as it belonged to the local gram sabha.
Barabanki’s Tehsildar Sudhir Kumar Rungta said the actor’s local agent Vinay Kumar Shukla had informed him that a letter donating about three bighas of land in Daulatpur had been accepted by the gram sabha.

Sudhir Kumar Rungta, however, disputed Bachchan’s decision to donate the land saying he had no right to do so as he is not its legitimate owner and the land belonged to the gram sabha.

The sabha’s acceptance letter was forwarded to the district magistrate, Chief Minister Mayawati and Bachchan, Rungta said quoting Shukla.

In New Delhi, Mayawati too questioned Bachchan’s move to donate the land. “When he is not the owner of the land, how can he donate it?” she told a press conference.

In Lucknow, a senior official said that the state government was seeking legal opinion on Bachchan’s offer to donate the land in Daulatpur to the gram sabha.

“The letter mentions several land gatta numbers... It has to be ascertained whether Bachchan can donate the land or not,” an official said.

Rungta said he had been told that another plot of land comprising over four bighas, which was purchased about one-and-half years ago in Daulatpur and is “undisputed”, has also been donated through the letter.
This plot of land was bought by Bachchan from a farmer and it could be donated in accordance with the star’s wishes, Rungta said.

Last month, the commissioner of Faizabad division quashed the allotment of gram sabha land in Daulatpur village to Bachchan.

The star later challenged the order in the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, which stayed its operation.
The matter will come up for hearing in the court again on July 23.