Vedanta University land acquisition illegal: Orissa HC

The Orissa High Court on Tuesday quashed all the land acquisition procedures for the Vedanta University that was proposed to be established on a sprawling 8,000 acres near the Konark-Puri marine drive.

Terming the State government's notifications made to acquire and award the land in favour of the Anil Agarwal Foundation (AAF) for the proposed varsity as ‘illegal' and ‘bad in the eye of law,' a Division Bench of the court comprising Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.P. Das directed the Foundation to return the acquired land to its original owners.

The ruling of the High Court came while adjudicating jointly at least two public interest litigation petitions (PILs) and seven individual writ petitions, including one by Umaballav Rath, a former legislator from Puri and Chinmaya Kumar Mishra, a lawyer.

Flouted laws

The petitioners challenged the setting up of the proposed university on several grounds including that of the acquisition processes which were made in violation of the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act 1894, Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act 1984 and Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules 1963.

They also contested the university project submitting that it would have an extreme debilitating impact on the eco-system and varied bio-diversity in the locality.

Similarly, they challenged the status of the Anil Agarwal Foundation that was changed to a ‘public company' from a ‘private company' called Vedanta Foundation in June, 2006 for the very purpose of acquiring land.

Urging the High Court to quash the land acquisition notifications, the petitioners also prayed for quashing of the MoU signed by the State government for the proposed University with Vedanta Foundation on July 19, 2006, which subsequently became the Anil Agarwal Foundation on September 6, 2006.

Taking up the batch of petitions for joint hearings, the court in its more than 100-page judgment framed at least 17 issues and discussing each of them individually found that the proposed project was at fault on all the counts.

Sterlite Foundation, a private limited company which subsequently changed to Vedanta Foundation in 2004 signed the MoU with the State government to set up the University on 15,000 acres near the Konark-Puri marine drive.

The varsity was to have undergraduate and postgraduate courses in engineering, medicine, management, general science and humanities.

Accordingly, the State government confirmed the availability of 8,000 acres of contiguous land for the University and subsequently made notifications to acquire over 6,500 acres, including over 1,300 acres belonging to the Lord Jagannath temple.