Vadodara: The Vadodara Municipal Corporation’s (VMC) standing committee on Friday approved a proposal to auction seven civic plots across the city, including the 978 sq m plot in Tandalja that was at the centre of a long-running legal dispute involving former India cricketer and Trinamool Congress MP Yusuf Pathan.The proposal will now be placed before the VMC general board for approval. The civic body will initiate the auction process after receiving the nod of the general body.The Tandalja plot came into the spotlight after the Gujarat High Court last year upheld the VMC’s contention that no allotment of the land was ever made in favour of Pathan. The court dismissed Pathan’s challenge to a civic notice and held that his occupation of the plot amounted to encroachment, allowing the civic body to proceed in accordance with the law.Case documents show that Pathan applied to the VMC in 2012 for allotment of the plot to set up a stable. The civic body resolved to sell the land to him at Rs 57,270 per sq m without an auction, but the proposal was turned down by the state govt in 2014.Since the proposal involved allotment without a public auction, it required approval from the state govt. The state govt, however, rejected the proposal in June 2014. Despite the rejection, the plot remained under his possession for years.In its judgement, the high court observed that despite the VMC’s resolutions, no final allotment order was ever issued in Pathan’s favour. The court further held that once the state govt rejected the proposal, Pathan could not claim any right over the land. The court in its Sept 2025 order stated that Pathan was found to be an “encroacher” of the land and that VMC was expected to take “strict action in accordance with the law.”Officials said the seven plots proposed for auction are located in different parts of the city, and the move is aimed at generating revenue for the civic body through transparent disposal of municipal land.
