Gujarat HC quashes plea against Nano land acquisition

12 May 2009

The Gujarat High Court cleared another hurdle for the state government and Tata Motors on Monday, as it dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the sanction of 1,100 acres of land for the Nano car project near Sanand. The high court has also upheld the procedure followed by the administration to sell plot to the company.

Earlier, the court had rejected applications by villagers demanding greater compensation for acquisition of their land by the state for allotment to Tata Motors Ltd.

While rejecting the contention of a purported NGO, Rashtriya Kisan Dal, that the sale of plot to the company is not in the interest of people of Gujarat, a division bench comprising chief justice K S Radhakrishnan and justice Akil Kureshi observed that the litigation "is not in public interest and intended only for media attention and publicity".

The state informed the court that Tata Motors has been exempted from stamp duty and registration charges, but no loan was advanced to the company for setting up the project.

The RKD and its chairman K H Thaker had last October urged the court to cancel the land deal, claiming that the government has incurred a loss of Rs1796.95 crore in order to benefit Tata Motors.

The appellants argued that the land was given to the Tatas at Rs14 lakh per acre, while the market rate is between Rs1 and 1.5 crore in the area Chharodi village. They accused the administration of bypassing all norms to benefit the industrial group, and requested the court to ask the government to place a copy of the memorandum of understanding on record, but the court didn't issue any direction in this regard.