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| UPDATE: SC dismisses Ambani-promoted SEZ plea |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jun 05, 2009, 15:40 IST |
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The fate of the Mumbai SEZ Ltd, promoted by industrialist Mukesh Ambani, hangs in balance with the Supreme Court today dismissing its appeal for a stay on the land acquisition proceedings.
The acquisition process would lapse on Monday, as it would cross the two-year deadline set by the Land Acquisition Act. If the court had stayed the acquisition proceedings, the statutory deadline would not prevail over the court’s final decision.
The bench headed by Justice B Sudarshan Reddy dismissed the appeal of the company against the order of the Bombay high court. Earlier, the high court had declined to interfere in the matter and allowed the firm to approach the Supreme Court.
The company had pleaded for speedy processing of the acquistion pointing out that two years after the state government issued a declaration of "intention to acquire the land" for the company, the district administration has not made the final award.
The apex court had last year transferred a number of SEZ cases to itself from various high courts. All the writ petitions, some by land owners and some in public interest, challenge the validity and procedure of acquisition of land in various states for building SEZs. The Supreme Court is yet to hear those cases. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court today issued notice on the Mumbai SEZ petition for transfer of its case to the apex court.
The Mumbai SEZ is scheduled to come up in an area of 10,000 hectares in Raigad district of Maharashtra with an investment of Rs 40,000 crore. The project was given the clearance in 2005, and already got two extensions. Therefore, the company wanted to speed up the acquisition procedure so that it would not lapse. However, it has not got relief either from the high court or the Supreme Court.
The project had run into trouble when farmers in 22 villages opposed the project in a referendum initiated by the state government last year.
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