Supreme Court gives 4 week deadline to UP, UK governments to resolve Hotel Alaknanda issue

The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday directed the Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh governments to resolve the deadlock over ownership of Hotel Alaknanda within four weeks. The apex court gave the four-week deadline after UP additional advocate general Aishwarya Bhati requested more time to work out formalities for the settlement. “The two states are moving positively towards a settlement on the matter of Hotel Alaknanda,” she told the court.

Bharti Reddy, who is representing Uttarakhand in the matter, said that “the chief secretaries of the two states will now meet and work out the formalities.”

After the Supreme Court had pulled up the two states last week and asked them to resolve the issue, chief secretaries of both states discussed the matter followed by a meeting of the chief ministers in Lucknow on Saturday. During the meeting, UP CM Yogi Adityanath had given in-principle approval to transfer of ownership of the hotel to the hill state.

The hotel is located on a prime piece of land along the Ganga river bank and was built in the late 1960s. It’s ownership was transferred to UP State Tourism Development Corporation Limited (UPSTDCL) after the corporation’s formation in 1974. When Uttarakhand was carved out of UP in 2000, the newly formed state demanded that the hotel be transferred to it considering that Haridwar had become part of Uttarakhand. When this was not done, the matter reached the apex court in 2004 where it has been dragging on ever since.