Lucknow, July 14 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government and the petitioners to maintain status quo over a disputed parcel of land in Sitapur after a 150-year-old educational institution claimed an imminent threat of demolition. The division bench of Justice Alok Mathur and Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai passed the interim order on July 12 in a Sunday sitting while hearing an urgent petition filed by Methodist Mission Girls Junior High School, Civil Lines, Sitapur, and another. The matter was placed before the bench after the petitioners sought an urgent hearing, claiming an imminent threat of demolition of the educational institution. The petitioner's counsel submitted that the disputed land measures 3.562 hectares and is situated in village Chavani Kadim in Sitapur. According to them, the land has been wrongly recorded as Nazul in state records. They claimed the property was purchased by their predecessor-in-interest in 1862 and subsequently transferred through successive predecessors before coming into the hands of the petitioners. The state counsel submitted that the Sitapur DM's order dated June 24, 2026, clearly showed that authorities had not interfered with the portion of land where the school and church are functioning. Instead, only other portions, specifically described in the impugned order, had been reclaimed. The state said that demolition had already been done in certain areas and their possession taken by the Nagar Palika Parishad, Sitapur, on July 10, 2024. The court directed the matter be listed on July 20 among the top ten cases. As an interim measure, the bench observed that since the state had already taken possession of a part of the disputed land, "they shall not change the nature of the possessed disputed property and the parties shall maintain status quo over the said land till the next date of listing"....