New Delhi, April 12
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld an Odisha High Court order setting aside land acquisition for a Vedanta university in Puri, Odisha, with observations to the effect that it was vitiated by state favouritism.
The land, some 15,000 acres was proposed to be acquired, in a very fertile stretch of land adjacent to two conjoint animal sanctuaries. Vedanta Foundation reduced this demand to 3837 acres after it ran into local opposition.
The top court said that the state government decision to acquire the land was vitiated by favouritism and was also arbitrary.
Private company’s demand for land exaggerated
The company’s move to scale down its demand to assuage local sentiments, the court said, indicated that it had in the first place “exaggerated” its claims for land required for the project.
“It is not appreciable why the government offered such an undue favour in favour of one trust/company. Thus, the entire acquisition proceedings and the benefits proposed by the state government were vitiated by favouritism and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution,” it said.
The bench comprised Justices M.R. Shah and Krishna Murari. “… there was no proper inquiry with respect to the requirement,” the court observed.
“Initially, 15,000 acres was proposed to be acquired, which is now reduced to 3837 acres. Meaning thereby, the proposal was for (an) exaggerated demand. This was mala fide intention on the part of the appellant company/foundation.
Agricultural land only mode of substance for 30000 people
The bench said that the agricultural lands belonged to 6000 families and was their only source of livelihood. This cannot be compensated in terms of money, therefore, the proposal made for less acquisition has to be rejected outright.
“At this stage, it is required to be noted that it was the specific case on behalf of the original writ petitioners, more particularly, the PIL petitioners that if such a huge land would have been acquired and/or even the lands, already acquired, would be misused and/or put to use for some other purpose like mining activities etc.”
The top court questioned how the state could have allotted the land to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, a private company. The private company was later converted into a Section 25 company, and not a public company, it noted.
Anil Agarwal heads the Vedanta group. The court also asked the Foundation to deposit a sum of Rs 5 lakh as costs within 6 weeks with the court. This would be transferred to the Orissa State Legal Services Authority.
The High Court had on Nov 16, 2010, quashed the land acquisition proceedings prompting the Foundation to go to the top court.
It had also directed that the possession of the acquired lands shall be restored to the landowners and on restoration of the possession to the landowners, they shall refund the amounts received by them as compensation or otherwise in respect of their lands.
The High Court also quashed the grant of government land in favour of the beneficiary company to restore the land granted to the beneficiary company by way of a lease.
The company had asked the Government of Orissa to specifically make available for it 15,000 acres of contiguous land around Nuanai, Puri district, in Bhubaneshwar-Puri-Konark in 2006 and had gone ahead and identified the land itself.
The PIL petitioners led by activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan argued that the area nearby was a Wildlife Sanctuary and two rivers, namely, Nuanai & Nala flow in the acquired lands.
If the acquisition went through the control of the rivers will be under the private company if the acquisition proceedings which was against the doctrine of public trust, Bhushan had argued.
