Rs 300-cr deal for land that couldn’t be sold—what’s Mahar Watan land, at centre of Parth Pawar row

Although the deal stands cancelled now, it has sparked a huge political row because the land is reserved for the Mahar community, and owned by the state government.

File photo of NCP leader Parth Pawar | X @parthajitpawar

Mumbai: A Mahar Watan plot in Maharashtra’s Pune is under scanner over a controversial deal to the tune of Rs 300 crore between a firm linked to Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s son Parth and a person holding the power of attorney for the original 272 watandars.

Although the land deal stands cancelled now, it has sparked a huge political controversy because the land reserved for the Mahar community, and owned by the government, was being sold for a meagre Rs 300 crore while its estimated market value was over Rs 1,800 crore. 

In the backdrop of this row, ThePrint looks at what is the Mahar Watan land and can it be sold by private individuals?

What is Mahar Watan land?

Mahar Watan land and its history go back centuries. The watan system existed during the reign of kings and later during colonial times. The land that was granted to the members of the Mahar community as compensation for performing certain duties in the village was called the Mahar Watan land. The Mahar community now falls under the Scheduled Caste category.

 In this system, specific castes and families like the Patils (executive), Kulkarnis (clerk and account keepers) and Mahars were assigned certain duties and were asked to provide services for the village. In lieu of their services, they received land or revenue rights.

“They used to work as watchmen, security, labourers in fields in the village. And that’s why these three were given (watan) as inam in lieu of their services. In 1874, the Bombay Hereditary Offices Act was passed. According to this act, the Mahar community was given the right on the land as a part of their revenue (they could sell whatever they would grow in the fields),” said Sayaji Waghmare, a Dalit scholar who was associated with the Ambedkarite movement.

In return, they had to work for the government and perform social work such as informing police about any crime or about death to the family, cleaning the village, cremating the dead, etc.

However, they did not have the full ownership of the land that was granted to them. For the Mahar community, Waghmare said, the land was linked to hereditary duties and was passed on from generations to generations.

He said the government used to pay them a nominal salary, and society used to give them food, and other things for survival. “Because of this, the community had become like beggars and had no self-respect, which Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was angry about.” said Waghmare.

Aditya Wanjari, who has been studying the Watan system, said the Bombay Hereditary Offices Act was bonding people of certain communities to ancestral occupations, which are caste based. 

“Dr. Ambedkar’s vision was that he told people that the land that you have is not something to be proud of and they call you a watandar, it is not something to be proud of because you were bonded to certain village and you had to do some surveys, which kept you out of education, capitalised economy. So he had to convince people to let go of this,” Wanjari said.

And, so the watandars stopped rendering these services somewhere around 1956. 

The Bombay state (now Maharashtra) then came up with the Bombay Inferior Village Watans Abolition Act, 1958. It allowed watandars to work in any village rather than being bonded to a particular village. With the money thus earned, they could buy back the land.

As per the act, the Mahar Watan Land was converted into Occupant Class II land, which grants restricted ownership rights, where the owner must get government permission for transfers like selling or redeveloping. 

The law mandated that the Mahar people could get the possession of the land as Occupant Class II by paying 3 percent of the land price. Only after paying 13 percent the price of the land, full ownership was granted and the land was converted to Class I, and full ownership was granted.

This means that until the payment is made, the land ownership was with the government and it could not be sold, mortgaged, transferred or leased without authorisation or approval of the collector. Any deal without the authorisation would be held invalid. 

Also, if the Occupant Class II land is to be used for non-agricultural purposes, the watandar has to pay 50 percent of its actual price with the permission of the collector.

“In many cases, people deceive the Mahar community and convert these lands to Class I and have been using it… and the government doesn’t check who is paying the price and who these people are,” said Waghmare.

Mahar Watan plots used to be outside the village but as cities grew, often these plots became prime property. “Even normal land owned by the scheduled class people requires a lot of documentation, if there has to be some sale, leave aside the Watan land. The price of these Watan land is relatively higher,” said Wanjari.

The Pawar controversy

In the Pune case, the sale deed took place on 19 May, 2025. About 60 percent) of the land in question was under the ownership of the state government. 

ThePrint reached Pune collector Jitendra Dudi through calls and email, but there was no response. The report will be updated if and when he responds. 

The 44-acre plot (or 17.51 hectares of land) in Pune’s Mundhwa was handed over by the state government to the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) on lease till March 2038.

According to an FIR filed in the case on the complaint of Naib Tehsildar Pravina Borde in Pune, the land in Survey Number 88 at Mundhwa was “illegally” purchased by Parth Pawar’s Amadea Enterprises LLP from Power of Attorney-holder Sheetal Tejwani. 

The FIR, a copy of which has been seen by ThePrint, says that Amedea Enterprises’s Digvijay Patil made an application to Tehsildar Suryakant Yevale earlier this year. 

According to the FIR, Yevale, who has since been removed from the post, wrote to an assistant director in the deputy director’s office 9 June, 2025.

According to that letter, Yevale asked the assistant director to vacate the 17.51 hectares of land. The FIR further states that Yevale is in the habit of helping private individuals get the ownership of plots which are under government control. “It shows that he illegally uses his authority,” the FIR states.

According to the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) website, its Western Regional Centre’s headquarters is in Mundhwa area of Pune, where the experimental garden houses 500 species of plants. It works around endemic and threatened plants of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka etc, the website mentions.

ThePrint has reached the BSI via mail for a comment on the issue. The report will be updated if and when there is a response.

On the controversy linked to his son, Ajit Pawar said earlier this week that neither he nor his family were involved in any illegal activities and all facts will come to light as the probe had been ordered by the Chief Minister.

(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)