The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a suit by the Maharashtra Wakf Board seeking to stop construction of a luxurious skyscraper by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai.

A bench of Justice H K Sema and Justice Markandey Katju refused to stall the ongoing construction at Malabar and Cumbala Hills, overseeing the Arabian Sea.

The Maharastra Wakf Board had moved the apex court to seek invalidation of an October 2007 order of the Bombay High Court, which had restrained the board from cancelling an allegedly illegal sale of 4,532 sq mt plot to the Mukesh Ambani-owned Antilia Commercial Private Limited.

According to the Maharsatra Wakf Board petition, the plot belonged to a Mumbai orphanage that was begun by social activist and philanthropist Currimbhoy Ebrahim Khoja in 1894.

Following the legislation, the board contended that the orphanage was to be treated as a Wakf-owned property.
The sale deed also stipulated that Antilia Commercial would be using the land only for “pious, religious and charitable purposes” and the orphanage sold the land in May 2002 without the Wakf’s permission for Rs 210 million, much below its estimated market value.

The Wakf Board initiated legal steps to cancel the sale and said that the land was sold to Antilia Commercial at a low price owing to the stipulation that it would be used for socia-religious reasons. But the orphanage trustees later even assisted Antilia Commercial in having the stipulation waived off, said the Waqf petition.

The sale deed came to the notice of a joint parliamentary panel in June 2007 after people complained of the illegal sale to Antilia. The state government got the matter investigated by the Quadri Committee, on whose recommendations, the Board began to cancel the sale. But the process was stayed by the Bombay High Court.