By Muslim Mirror News Desk,
Washington: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s skyscraper Mumbai home Antilia – named after a mythical island in the Atlantic – has been rated as the world’s “most outrageously expensive property” by Forbes magazine.
Two of Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi N. Mittal’s houses in Kensington Palace Gardens in London also figure among the 21 most expensive billionaire homes in the world rated fifth and 18th.
“The title of the most outrageously expensive property in the world still belongs to Mukesh Ambani’s Antilia,” it says.
The 27-storey, 400,000-square-foot skyscraper includes six stories of underground parking, three helicopter pads, and reportedly requires a staff of 600 to keep it running.
Construction costs for Antilia have been reported at a range of $1 billion to $2 billion.
It must be noted that the land was allotted for educational and charitable purposes, for educating Muslim children under the umbrella of the Wakf board in India. For all those who wouldn’t know, Wakf under Islamic law is an asset which is specifically set aside for charitable purposes as had been the case here. But legal scrutiny has exposed that the land was acquired illegally by the owners of the Antilla tower, by paying a cost which is multiple times lower than the standard rate set for real estate in that area, and also bypassing several other legal hurdles.
According to the state chairman of the Wakf board N.D.Pathan,
“Some trustees got permission from the charity commissioner and sold the house to Mr. Ambani. The Wakf Board tried to recover the land but Mr. Ambani went to court and obtained a stay from the Bombay High Court.”
Also the state minister for minority affairs, Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan has requested that the case for the same be handed to the Central Board of Investigation (CBI) for scrutiny as the case has snowballed into a major issue.
(With inputs from IANS)