Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur has come out in support of director Subhash Ghai, who has been asked to return a plot allotted to his Whistling Woods International film institute.

"#subhashghai gave 15yrs of his time n energy 2 create centre of learning fr film. #Whistlingwoods is not a scam, he should b applauded," Kapur tweeted. "It's not possible to build educational institutions at current land prices in any city, government has to allocate land for this #whistlingwoods."

Citing an example of a school in Singapore, Kapur posted: "#Tisch film school (Tisch School of the Arts) in S'pore on land given free by Govt now Singpore directors are making grade internationally (sic)."

Ghai's studio and the institute were built on 5.5 acres of land and the filmmaker was allotted an additional 14.5 acres of surrounding land for expansion in 2000 by then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

The Bombay High Court had Thursday directed Ghai to hand over the 14.5 acres of open land and gave him time till July 31, 2014 to return the 5.5 acres.