Activist and Himalayan Institute of Alternative Learning (HIAL) founding director Sonam Wangchuk and his wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, on Saturday targeted the Ladakh administration’s defence of its decision to cancel the land allotment to the institute.
Wangchuk shared a letter from the administration, which he said exposed “their own delays if not incompetence”.
“Whenever I raise my voice about injustices in Ladakh, the government media machinery gets activated to target me and our institute HIAL’s land lease. Because the institute failed to pay the required dues or execute a lease deed, it said that the land allotment had automatically lapsed.
Their response came after the Ladakh administration, in an affidavit filed before the high court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, attributed the cancellation to Wangchuk’s “disregard for the law”, HT reported earlier . Please take the message, don’t kill the messenger,” Wangchuk said in a post on X.
The letter, shared by Wangchuk, read: “…in the wake of the formation of the new UT and the pandemic, the execution of the lease deed is under process as we are awaiting the New Lease Policy to be finalised. This delay is across board for all institutions, including several government institutions, however you may continue the construction activities of your institution on the allotted land. “Instead of enabling such work, the administration appears determined to bury it beneath paperwork, contradictions and public accusations.
It said the original allotment order, issued on May 5, 2018, was conditional and clearly stated that the lease would be cancelled if the institute failed to execute the deed within a year. The affidavit cited an October 2026 certification by Ladakh’s higher education department stating that HIAL was not a recognised university and that its courses were not affiliated with the University of Ladakh or any other statutory body.
Gitanjali said HIAL had spent years working to establish an educational institution focused on the challenges faced by the Himalayan region. In its 136-page affidavit filed in the high court , the administration said the 40-year lease allotment for 1,076 kanals and 1 marla of land at Phyang Thang had “lapsed by operation of law” on May 5, 2019. It said HIAL had failed to execute the lease deed or pay the mandatory land premium within the stipulated one-year period. The administration described the petition as “misconceived, devoid of merit, and barred by delay and laches”. The administration said this violated the main objective behind establishing an alternative university.
