SC bench declines to hear Vedanta University case

A Supreme Court bench today declined to hear appeals of the Orissa government and the Anil Agarwal Foundation relating to the establishment of a Vedanta University in Orissa.

The appeals were against the Orissa high court judgment, which quashed the land acquisition notified for setting up Vedanta University. In all, there were four appeals, one by the state government and three others by the foundation.

On January 5, a bench headed by Justice R V Raveendran had recused from the case. The Chief Justice had placed the case before the new bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and Ashok Kumar Ganguly. When the case was taken up, the judges announced their inability to hear the case, reportedly because one of the judges had dealt with the case at a high court.

The high court had, on November 16, 2010, delivered its judgment in writ petitions, including two public interest petitions, alleging that land acquisition for the proposed university in Puri, violated several rules of the Land Acquisition Act. The court had asked the foundation to return the land to its original owners, while striking down the acquisition on 17 grounds.

The high court had also found the foundation was a private company, not a public one, in terms of the Companies Act, and so, the takeover was not permissible according to the provisions of acquisition law. The question of whether the purpose is public, when a private company is the beneficiary, remains unanswered. The government argues that the foundation was a public company since 2006.