New Delhi: Bollywood actress Rani Mukherjee has been served a legal notice in a land scam case in Maharashtra.

The Ahmednagar district collector issued the notice. This after Rani paid Rs 33 lakh in December 2005 for a prime plot near Shirdi.

After the purchase, Rani paid a stamp duty of Rs 1.32 lakh for registration. But the title of the land could not be transferred to her name as it belonged to a farmer.

The land was purchased in the name of Rani's father Ram Mukherjee. Rani now has 15 days' time to respond to the notice.

In 1977, the Corporation had given on lease 1.8 hectare of land to one farmer named Raman Shivsagar. In 1981, Shivsagar made 20 small pieces of the land and began selling it.

One such piece of 11,000 sq ft was sold to P Sonawane, who sold it to one Kanhaiyalal Khatri. This way, the land passed to three more buyers, Sampat More being the last buyer before it went to Rani in 2005.

"The matter came to light when Rani's father Ram Mukherjee sent a representative to the Tehsildar office for final transfer of the land. It was then observed that it was a agriculture land and hence could not be sold to a non farmer," PTI quoted Suryavanshi as saying.

"Moreover, the land was originally under the jurisdiction of village panchayat. Today, it comes under the Municipal Corporation. For any construction, permission of Revenue Department is essential, which has not been taken by Rani Mukherjee. Hence, there was no record of her name in this land deal," he said.

(With PTI inputs)