Days after meeting PM Modi, 81-year-old schoolmate sees land dispute move towards settlement

For nearly 15 years, 81-year-old Asgar Ali Vora says he had been knocking on the doors of government authorities over a piece of land in Bhayander that he claimed had been taken over by developers.

Then came a meeting with an old schoolmate, namely, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Vora, who studied with Modi at B N School in Vadnagar, Gujarat, met the PM on September 8 and raised the long-running land dispute with him. Days later, the matter appears to have moved towards a settlement, with BJP MLA Narendra Mehta saying he would give up possession of the disputed plot and surrender the construction permission granted for it, according to Suhas Birhade's Times of India report.


According to Vora, he had bought around 2,810 square metres of land at Navghar in Bhayander East in 1989. He alleged that the property was subsequently taken over in 2011 by Swayam Builders and Mehta’s Seven Eleven Constructions. Vora said he had already pursued the case with different government departments for years but in vain.

Post his meeting with the PM, Vora said he had received a positive response. Government authorities promptly took up the issue, and subsequently meeting was held at Mantralaya on Tuesday chaired by, Shrikar Pardeshi, principal secretary to the Maharashtra chief minister. Among those present were Vora, Mehta, Mira-Bhayander municipal commissioner Radha Binod Sharma and town planner Purushottam Shinde.

At the meeting, Mehta submitted a letter to the town planning department saying he was relinquishing possession of the disputed property as well as the construction approval connected to it. Mehta maintained that the land had been purchased from Mervyn Fernandes in 2019.

The MLA also wrote separately to the police commissioner withdrawing a complaint he had earlier filed against Vora, citing that the two sides had arrived at a settlement.

For Vora, the development marks a significant turn in a dispute which has consumed nearly a decade and a half. A dispute that gained fresh momentum soon after he took the matter to a familiar face from his school days.

(With TOI inputs)