After two court verdicts overturned allotment of 20 acres of land here for his film academy, filmmaker Subhash Ghai says he feels cheated by the Maharashtra government. “We feel cheated by government of Maharashtra when we are told, after 10 years of setting up Whistling Woods at a cost of `75 crores, that our joint venture agreement since year 2000 is not valid,” Mr Ghai said on Friday in a statement here. He said the reason given (for the cancellation) was because of a government error that a board resolution was not passed and land was undervalued. “What is our fault? They gave the agreement to us signed by the then MD, cultural secretary and minister of culture to have a partnership in Whistling Woods Ltd with share equity and we invested `20 crores to begin with,” Mr Ghai said. Proving a major setback to Mr Ghai, the Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed an appeal by Mukta Arts Ltd, owned by Mr Ghai, challenging a Bombay high court ruling cancelling allotment of 20 acres of prime land in Goregaon east for his film academy, Whistling Woods International. Observing that the entire transaction “lacked transparency”, the apex court said the application for allotting the land remained in cold storage under three chief ministers and was revived after Vilasrao Deshmukh became chief minister and the land was allotted by him. Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday sought Mr Deshmukh’s resignation following the Supreme Court’s observation.