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In Nishon district, Kashkadarya region, a farmer named Bahodir Qoldoshev has spent eight years moving between courts and government offices in pursuit of land he says was taken from him without legal basis. His case has produced court rulings in his favour, a district administration that ignored them, and unresolved questions about whether a conflict of interest inside the prosecutor’s office helped keep those rulings from being enforced.
Qoldoshev registered his farm, Bobur, in 1998 on a plot that was later consolidated and expanded. By January 2019, following a land-optimisation process, the district administration formalised his holding at just over 106 hectares. The same official who signed that order — Nishon district chief Mukhtor Hayitmurodov — reversed course four months later, on 24 May 2019, issuing a new decision to return the land to the district reserve.
By June 2019, part of that land — 36 hectares — had been allocated to a limited liability company called Nishan Chicken’s.
Courts rule for the farmer; district acts anyway
Qoldoshev challenged the decisions in court. On 20 November 2019, the Nishon District Administrative Court declared unlawful both the order returning his 105 hectares to the reserve and the subsequent allocations to two other legal entities. The Kashkadarya Regional Administrative Court upheld that ruling on 13 February 2020. The district administration did not appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning the judgments took legal effect.
Under those rulings, Qoldoshev’s rights to the land should have been restored. Instead, on 20 March 2020 — after both courts had already found the earlier decisions unlawful — district chief Hayitmurodov signed a fresh order allocating the same 36 hectares to Nishan Chicken’s once again. According to documents presented by the farmer, the land at that point still legally belonged to Bobur farm, because the court had invalidated the order that had stripped him of it.
How a new allocation could be issued over land whose prior seizure had been ruled invalid is a question the report says has not been publicly answered by the district administration or any supervising body.
Allegations of a conflict of interest
The most serious dimension of the case concerns who held a stake in Nishan Chicken’s. According to information provided by Qoldoshev, a man identified as Abdimurodov Temurbek Abdimurodoviç held a 33 percent founding share in the company. The farmer alleges this individual is a nephew of Sherniyoz Umrzoqov, who served as Nishon district prosecutor between 2022 and 2024 and who, according to the farmer, continues to work in the regional prosecutor’s office.
The report by Effect.uz is careful to note that the existence of this family connection does not by itself prove that the prosecutor or his relative interfered unlawfully in the land dispute. The publication describes it as an allegation and a suspicion raised by the farmer, and states that it is not known whether any competent authority has investigated the potential conflict of interest or reached any conclusion about it.
The founding structure of Nishan Chicken’s is also said to include two Afghan nationals, a detail raised by Bobur farm’s business manager, Imomyor, who expressed concern that foreign co-founders might carry negative impressions of Uzbekistan’s legal environment back to their home country.
Land use and investment obligations
The 36 hectares were allocated to Nishan Chicken’s on the stated condition that the company develop poultry farming and bring in investment. Journalists from Effect.uz visited the site and found alfalfa and other crops being grown across approximately 35 hectares — around 22 hectares under alfalfa and 13 hectares under other plantings. A small poultry facility was present on the grounds of what appeared to be a former cotton-processing enterprise. Staff there told the journalists that chicks were about to be brought in.
The report raises questions about whether the investment and poultry-development commitments attached to the land grant have been met, and says those questions can only be answered with documentation from the company or the relevant regulatory bodies. Effect.uz said it would publish any response from Nishan Chicken’s or the officials named in the report.
The unresolved core
Qoldoshev’s case illustrates a pattern that Uzbek land-rights advocates have long described: court victories that do not translate into enforcement, and administrative decisions that are reissued in slightly altered form after being struck down. The farmer has now been litigating for eight years. Two courts found the original seizure unlawful. The district administration did not appeal. Yet the 36 hectares remain outside his control.
Effect.uz said it would continue investigating the case and had sought comment from Nishan Chicken’s and from the officials whose decisions are at issue.