Daijiworld Media Network – Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Feb 10: Karnataka High Court (HC), through an order issued on Wednesday February 9, ordered prestigious five-star hotel in the city, Windsor Manor of the ITC Group, to return the building it is functioning in, to the state Wakf Board, within the next four months.

It also prescribed that the hotel management has to pay a rent of six lac rupees per month to Wakf Board without fail, every month. Justice Nag Mohan Das, while issuing the said order, also asked Karnataka State Wakf Board, to initiate steps to take back into its possession, other buildings owned by it and presently occupied by various parties.

ITC Group of Companies, which owns Windsor Manor, had approached the HC with a writ petition, questioning the decision of the Wakf Board taken in 2001, to cancel the lease granted for the hotel earlier. The writ petition stands dismissed.

The said building, previously owned by Sir Mirza Ismail, Diwan of Mysore, was handed over to the Wakf Board. In 1980, it was given on a 30-year-lease to ITC Group of Hotels. But, the Wakf Board, which met in 2001, decided to cancel the lease, observing that sale of liquor and other unethical activities that are against the Wakf rules, were going on in the building. As such, it had taken a decision to cancel the lease.