Land acquisition for varsity illegal, says SC
The court dismissed separate appeals filed by the Anil Agarwal foundation and the Odisha government with a cost of ₹5 lakh to be paid by the foundation in two weeks.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the setting aside of the acquisition of nearly 7,000 acres of land by the Odisha government to make way for a university by the Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta group, finding the action of the state government to be vitiated by favouritism in providing “undue largesse” to a private company by bending all rules and violating the doctrine of public trust in giving away prime land with two rivers passing through it and a wildlife sanctuary in close proximity without any application of mind.
Affirming the Orissa high court order of November 16, 2010 that sounded the deathknell on the 2006 acquisition, a bench of justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari said, “We are more than satisfied that the High Court has not committed any error and in fact the High Court was justified in setting aside the entire acquisition proceedings, which has been vitiated by non-compliance of the statutory provisions under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and the Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules, 1963 and vitiated by mala fides and favouritism and is a clear case of the non-application of mind on relevant aspects.”
The court dismissed separate appeals filed by the Anil Agarwal foundation and the Odisha government with a cost of ₹5 lakh to be paid by the foundation in two weeks. This money was directed to be passed on to the Odisha state legal services authority.
The high court had detailed out every single illegality that went into the case right from the initiation of acquisition at the instance of Vedanta foundation in April 2006. The initial proposal was to acquire 15,000 acres of land on the Puri-Konark marine drive for a university catering to multi-disciplinary undergraduate and post-graduate courses.
Ultimately, the total land acquired by the state for the project was 6,917.63 acres.
The land belonged to 6,000 families, affecting nearly 30,000 people. It was the landowners who had approached the high court to set aside the acquisition award issued in favour of the private company. To facilitate the acquisition, the Vedanta foundation signed a memorandum of understanding with the state government in July 2006 and changed its name to Anil Agarwal foundation. Since the government could acquire land only in favour of a public company, the Anil Agarwal foundation by way of a board resolution in October 2006 changed overnight into a public company.
Noting these facts in its 103-page judgment, the top court said, “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, which were proposed by the State Government were vitiated by favouritism.”
Going by the material produced on record, the bench said, “It appears that undue benefits were proposed/in fact offered and given to the beneficiary company providing undue largesse.” The most important aspect, the court noted, was the “non-application of mind” by the then Naveen Patnaik government on environmental aspects and wildlife concerns.
Justice Shah, writing the judgment for the bench, noted that the land to be acquired had two rivers, Nuanai and Nala, passing through it. “If the lands in question are continued to be acquired by the beneficiary company, the control of the rivers would be with the said private company, which would violate the doctrine of public trust,” the judgment said, which in turn would impact the local residents.
