37 enemy properties across UP auctioned for Rs 6 crore

NEW DELHI: The second tranche of 37 "enemy properties" was auctioned for Rs 6 crore, as compared to Rs 5.7 crore from the sale of the first batch of 21 properties in September. According to the Custodian of Enemy Properties in India (CEPI), the 37 properties are spread across UP's Amroha, Muzaffarnagar and Sultanpur districts.

The enemy properties are those that were left behind by people who took citizenship of Pakistan and China following Partition and after the 1962 and 1965 wars.

In the second batch, the government had listed 27 new properties, free from any legal hindrances, and added to the list of 10 properties which remained unsold in the first auction, said officials. The properties were identified as agricultural land valued below ?1 crore each. They were recommended for sale by the Enemy Property Disposal Committee and approved by the Union home ministry.


"The properties were recommended as they were found to be without any encumbrances of judgment, decree or order of any court, tribunal or other authority or any law for the time being in force," said a government official, who did not wish to be identified.

The CEPI is empowered to dispose of enemy properties by sale or transfer with the approval of the Centre. In 2020, a group of ministers headed by Union home minister Amit Shah was set up to monitor the disposal of enemy properties. The value of earlier 9,406 enemy properties across the country was estimated to be Rs 1 lakh crore. Later, nearly 3,000 more such properties were identified.

After the Chinese aggression in 1962, the custodian was called upon to take charge of Chinese assets in India with the object of vesting the properties of Chinese subjects left in India under the Defence of India Rules, 1962. In 1968, the Enemy Property Act was enacted to deal with these properties. The Act was amended in 1977 and recently in 2017, following the claim laid by the heirs of Raja Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan, known as Raja of Mahmudabad, on his properties spread across UP and Uttarakhand.