Ahmedabad:
Spiritual guru Asaram Bapu's ashram has been ordered to vacate over 67,000 sq mt land it
had allegedly encroached in the Motera area here, district officials said on Monday.
"Asaram ashram has been ordered to vacate the encroached land under section 61 of the Land Revenue Code (LRC)," district collector Harit Shukla said.
"Under this order, they have been asked to vacate the encroached land within seven days or else further action would be taken against them under section 202 of LRC," he said.
Officials said that under section 202 a short notice would be served to party and if the encroachment is still not removed, the same would be removed by the district authorities. "Then the expense of removing encroachment will have to be borne by the party concerned," they added.
Earlier, this year the ruling BJP government had admitted in the state assembly that Asaram ashram has encroached upon 67,099 sq mt land.
A police complaint has been filed by one of the ex-follower of Asaram, Raju Chandak naming the godman and two others for attempt to murder and hatching criminal conspiracy to kill him early this month.
Asaram had approached the Gujarat High Court to quash the charges against him. The court, however, had rejected his plea saying that investigation in the matter was on.