Anand
Bodh, TNN May 11, 2012, 07.27AM IST
SHIMLA:
Around 325 bighas of land worth crores was handed over by the
Himachal Pradesh government to Jai Prakash Associates Limited (JAL)
without any authority, which has left the high court shocked.
In
its recent judgment, the division bench of the court has observed,
"Can the state act like a land mafia, take over the possession
of the village common land and hand it over to a private company
without even following the semblance of the rule of law? Can a
private company take possession of public property and erect a
factory thereupon without any legal authority? Obviously the answer
has to an emphatic No."
In
its May 4 judgment, the division bench of Justice Deepak Gupta and
Justice Sanjay Karol has pointed out that the speed at which the
action was taken and the manner in which JAL was put into possession
of the plant clearly reflects that everything is not above board.
The
verdict said that as per the documents, which are on record, single
window clearance for the plant was conveyed to JAL on September 16,
2004, which thereafter approached the state level site appraisal
committee for approval of the site at village Pandiyana (Tikkri) near
Bagheri and the proposed site was finally recommended and approved by
the committee on May 27, 2005.
The
court observed that the version of state is that the land selected
was forest land and therefore permission for diversion of the forest
land was sought under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 for being
diverted for use of non-forest purpose for setting up a cement plant.
This permission was granted on September 8, 2005. Thereafter, on
October 18, 2005 the industry department took up the matter with the
revenue department for leasing out the land to JAL.
"Admittedly,
the revenue department transferred the land to industry department
only on November 29, 2008 and the industry department took notional
possession of the land on March 4, 2009. The company had been put in
possession of the land in October, 2005 without any legal document or
order. We vide our order dated September 30, 2011, had directed the
chief secretary to the Himachal Pradesh government to explain how the
possession of land was handed over to JAL," the court said.
On
the reply filed by the chief secretary, the court observed that
shockingly in a matter which was being dealt with at the highest
levels of the executive, nobody looked into this aspect of the matter
as to how JAL had been put in possession of this land, merely because
the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) had granted permission
to divert the forest land for non-forest purpose.
The
court further pointed out that in fact the land, even as per the
government, was village common land and possession was not of the
revenue or industry departments. "If the possession of the land
was not with the departments how was the possession of public land
handed over to the company," it said.
While
referring to the issue of transferring land from the common pool to
allotment pool, the court observed that again only the interest of
JAL was watched and the interests of the common people were totally
forgotten. "It appears that the officials were more concerned
about the interest of the project proponent and nobody bothered about
the interest of the villagers or the purpose of the village common
lands act," the court added.
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2012 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved
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