HC rejects petitions against proposed factory

A proposed paper board factory in Tiruchirappalli district today crossed a hurdle with the Madras High Court dismissing petitions seeking a direction to the Tamil Nadu government not to allow it from coming up and takeover cultivable land being acquired for it.
Justice B Rajendran of the Madurai Bench, while dismissing the petitions filed by Padmavathy and Krishnamoorthy, owners of some protion of the land, said the area in Mondipatti village in Manaparai taluk is dry and backward and if a big factory is started it will generate employment.
"This court has to consider only the public interest at large," the judge said.

Besides, 95 per cent of the land to be acquired for the factory was waste land or dry land and only five per cent of the land was amenable to cultivation, the court said. "That does not mean they will not totally acquire any land."
Moreover, the petitioners have not produced any document to show that the land had been cultivable all along, it said. Even in the documents produced by them, they have not stated anything with regard to the agricultural activities and the nature of the land, it said.
Revenue Department officials, including the District Collector, denied agricultural land was being acquired.