Vedanta University: Supreme Court Reserves Judgement On Land Acquisition Dispute

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its judgment on appeals filed by the Orissa government and Anil Aggarwal Foundation against Orissa High Court's 2010 decision of quashing the land acquisition for establishment of Vedanta University. Aggarwal, who plans to establish the university, is Chairman of Vedanta Resources, the mining company The bench of Justices M. R. Shah and Krishna Murari heard Advocate Prashant Bhushan for the land owners and Senior Advocate C. A. Sundaram for the Foundation. In its November, 2010 decision, the division bench of the High Court had ruled that taking over of possession of the lands was in flagrant violation of the statutory provisions of Sections 4, 5A, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 (2), 23, 24, read with the provisions under Part-VII of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894". The court had quashed the impugned land acquisition proceedings including the notifications under Sections 4(1) and 6 and the awards passed in the Land Acquisition Proceedings for acquisition of land in favour of the beneficiary company. It had further directed that the possession of the acquired lands shall be restored to the respective land owners irrespective of the fact whether they have challenged the acquisition of their lands or not.On Wednesday, Bhushan argued, "Rs. 1.25 lakhs per acre is the average compensation claim that has been given for this land! 1.25 lakhs per acre for somebody who is losing his livelihood, somebody who is effectively deprived of his livelihood by the loss of the only land that he owns and he is given 1.25 lakhs! That is nothing! They were all small land-holders!""And this land is not even contiguous, it is all in patches. First, they (Foundation) said that they need 15,000 acres for establishing a world-class university. And they are somebody which is a three-person family company, limited by guarantee of Rs.5000, which has never set up any educational institution! Now they are saying that even if it is 2000-2500 acres, give it to us, even if it is in patches! Why? They said we need 15,000 acres to create a world-class university that would accommodate 1 lakh students. Now they say give us even this 2500 acres which is in patches and we will establish a university here? This is absolute farce! This area is full of minerals also. This area has sand minerals also. We don't know what they intend to do. They probably intend to use this land, whatever is given to them, whether it is 2500 acres etc, essentially for mining for various minerals!", he continued.Bhushan further said that when the MOU was signed between the foundation and government, the former was admittedly a private company. The government signed the MOU with a private company knowing full well that for a private company, the government cannot acquire any land. Anil Aggarwal Foundation required the previous approval of the central government in writing to convert it into a public company but no such approval has been received, he submitted. "That conversion did not happen because they did not submit their altered memorandum of association etc. So a three-member family company enters into an MOU with the government where the government says that we will acquire this 8000 to 10,000 acres of contiguous land and we will give it to you, knowing full well everything," added Bhushan.Continuing on the aspect, Bhushan said the foundation was referring to a letter from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in 2006 and relying on it to say that "look, we became a public company before the Section 4 notification (under the 1894 LA Act) and before the Section 41 agreement (under the LA Act)'.""But it merely says that 'Vedanta's request for permission under Section 25(8) of the Companies Act is hereby considered for conversion of the status of the company from private to public company' and it adds that the provisions of so-and-so sections are to be complied with...Section 44B has to be given a purposive interpretation. There is a reason for it. It does not mean a three-member family company, where the public cannot purchase shares, should be treated as a public company, apart from the fact that it never even became a public company!", argued the counselBhushan also submitted that the people who land was being acquired are all dependent on the farming for their livelihood. He referred to various provisions and procedures under the relevant law and argued that same was not followed in the process. "When we asked under RTI whether there was any enquiry under the Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules, 1963 by the collector, Puri, we found there was no such enquiry. So anybody comes and say that we will establish a world-class university for one lakh students and the government agrees to that claim? It is a mining company. It is a three member family company, what experience do they have of educational institutions?" Bhushan said while concluding his arguments.In response, Sundaram submitted that the Foundation was a public company."Let me get out of...

Vedanta University: Supreme Court Reserves Judgement On Land Acquisition Dispute

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Vedanta University: Supreme Court Reserves Judgement On Land Acquisition Dispute

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