MUMBAI: Following the Supreme Court’s directive, the state government has initiated the process to recover the land from Subhash Ghai where the film training institute Whistling Woods International is based.

Film City managing director Shyam Tagde said that he sent a letter to the institute after the apex court’s verdict. "I wrote a letter to Whistling Woods on Wednesday evening asking it to return the land and spoke to its chief executive officer," said Tagde. "The institute said it would cooperate," he said.

The state will initially recover 14.5 acres of 20 acres. The remaining 5.5 acres, on which the institute is built, can be retained till May 2014, the court had expressed.

Tagde said the officials need three to four days to demarcate the land to be recovered, for which the measuring may start on Saturday.