HP govt to acquire land of Karmapa's monastry

The Himachal Pradesh government is now moving to acquire the land of Gyuto Monastery, the transit home of Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorje, as the probe into seizure of large amount of foreign currency from the monastery brought fresh focus on benami deals by the community members.

Officials said that the process of mutation of 'benami' lands in possession of "the Dalai Lama's administration" was on since 2006 and the titles of 73 such properties, including the sprawling premises of Gyuto Monastery, are being transferred in the name of the government.

The government had agreed to consider regularisation of these 'benami' properties by vesting the ownership in the government and further leasing these out to Tibetan Administration, they said.

The information about these lands on which the Tibetan "government-in-exile" had raised structures was provided to the government by Tibetan "administration", official sources said.

Kangra Deputy Commissioner RS Gupta said that it was a routine revenue exercise and mutation in 40 cases had already been done while the title transfer in respect of remaining lands was in process.

"The Gyuto Monastery complex was one such property on which the Dalai Lama administration had build the monastery and the land on which the construction had been done would vest in the government," he said.

Officials said that the process of "regularising" these properties has been hastened after foreign currency worth Rs 7.5 crore belonging to 25 countries including China was recovered by police from the premises of a Karmapa-backed trust and some of the trustees.

The raids followed recovery of Rs one crore from two persons on Mehatpur border on January 25 last, allegedly drawn from a bank in Delhi for some land deal. However, Gupta said that there will be no immediate physical takeover of the property.