The Ministry of Defence would soon file a title suit in the Supreme Court to claim its ownership of the land on which the controversial Adarsh building stands, its counsel Aniket Nikam said today.
Nikam said this while responding to the interim report of the two-member judicial commission, tabled in the state assembly yesterday, which held that the disputed land belonged to the Maharashtra government.
Nikam, who represented the Ministry of Defence in the proceedings before the Adarsh Judicial Commission, said "title to any piece of land cannot be established conclusively through the report of the Commission which has been set up under the Commission of Inquiry Act.
"Title to disputed property can be established only by filing a title suit in an appropriate court of law which in this case would be the Supreme Court," he said adding that the Defence Ministry was in the process of filing the title suit.
Describing the report as an 'eyewash', Nikam said the Commission had not considered the submissions made by the Defence Ministry that the Adarsh land belonged to them. The report had concluded that the Adarsh land belonged to the state government solely on the basis of section 294 of Maharashtra Land Revenue Code which says that ownership of all unclaimed land belonged to the state, he said.