A team of Lucknow Development Authority officials allegedly threatened to demolish a house near the Kanshiram Yadgar Vishram Sthal in Mall Avenue on Friday afternoon.

“The Authority came to demolish the house but later seeing the media they went back,” said Khalid Abdullah, the owner of the house.   

The Authority, however, maintained that they had gone there only to serve a notice to the leaseholder for using the garden area for commercial purposes, which is against the lease conditions.

According to Abdullah, his grandfather, late Justice Niamatullah, had obtained the 70,000 square feet land on lease from the Improvement Trust in 1937 for 99 years.

In the same year, it was registered as a Wakf property.

The Authority cannot take any action until the lease period is over, said Abdullah. Currently, as many as 55 people, including the leaseholder’s family and servants, live there. 

The LDA Vice-Chairman, Mukesh Kumar Meshram, said the lease of the property had been cancelled because the lease-holder was using the garden for commercial purposes.

The authorities claim that Abdullah had refused to accept the notice.

According to Abdullah, the garden was rented out for marriage functions and they had obtained the permission of the Lucknow Municipal Corporation.

Meshram, however, contended that the Corporation could not have granted the permission for commercial use of the land.