Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan’s 19,960 sq metres sprawling Alibaug farmhouse has run afoul of the Income Tax department which has proceeded to provisionally attach it. As per a Business Standard report, the attachment order for Shahrukh’s Deja Vu Farms Pvt Ltd was issued in December under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act (PBPT).
Under the provisional attachment, this property can be attached for a period of 90 days, from the day the notice was issued. This luxury property contains amenities like a helipad and has access to the beach of the coastal Maharashtra town.
The main allegation is that Shahrukh Khan had sought to purchase agricultural land for farming purposes but instead ended up constructing a luxury farmhouse. As per an Income Tax report, quoted by the Business Standard report, the Deja Vu Farms had acted as a “benamidar” for the ultimate benefit of Shahrukh Khan, which falls under the Section 2 (9) of the PBPT Act.
Under Maharashtra’s Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, it is illegal to transfer agriculture land to non-agriculture users, without taking the permission of either the district collector or the state government. It was also alleged that this Deja Vu Farms Pvt Ltd was incorporated in order to purchase these agricultural lands as Sharukh Khan reportedly could not have been able to do so in a personal capacity.
Historically this Deja Vu Farms was incorporated in 2004 by two shareholders namely Srinivas Parthasarathy and Somasekhar Sundaresan, after which the shares transfer certificates were signed by the shareholders in Shahrukh and Gauri Khan’s name in December of that year. It has also been claimed that Shahrukh Khan gave an unsecured loan of Rs 84.5 million to this company.
It has as a result been claimed in the Business Standard report that, the unsecured loans provided by Shahrukh were used to purchase lands by Deja Vu farms which till date hasn’t shown any income via farming activity.
This issue had come to the forefront in November 2017, when it was reported that this farmhouse was one of the 87 properties against whom action could be taken for alleged Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) violations. A legal opinion regarding the same was sought by Raigad collector Dr Vijay Suryavanshi.
Coming to Shahrukh Khan’s property, it was then stated that first a legal link had to be established between the actor and the property, as the farmhouse was technically owned by Deja Vu Farms, in a certain Moreshwar Asgaonkar’s name.
One of the initial signs of trouble for this property came in 2015, when one of its boundaries was demolished for allegedly violating Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) violations.
This property is incidentally well favoured by Shahrukh Khan, with him hosting his 52nd birthday party there, which was attended by various Bollywood A listers.
