Tata's Singur plant land acquisition illegal: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has scrapped the 2006 land deal through which the West Bengal Government had acquired 997 acres of land for the Tata Motors' manufacturing plant in Singur. Terming the deal illegal, the court has ordered the state Government to return the land to local farmers.

In a 204 page long judgment, the court pointed that the land acquisition done in 2006 didn’t meet several requirements of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. As a result, the state's Survey Settlement Department has been asked to identify the land portions and respective previous owners so that the farmers get back their land within 12 weeks.

Tata Motors was assigned the 997 acres of land in 2006 for building its factory to manufacture the Tata Nano. But due to repeated protests around the site, Tata was eventually forced to leave the Singur plant in 2008. The Indian automaker had then set up a facility in Sanand, Gujarat, which is currently operational. But the Singur land was still under the ownership of the Tata Group. The entire land and infrastructure lay in total abandonment.

In 2011, after the State elections, the new government issued an ordinance to seize the acquired land from Tata Motors. The government even took possession of the land within a week. Tata Motors challenged this ordinance in the High Court, but the court refused to intervene. The automaker moved to the Supreme Court, which then ordered the state government not to return land to the farmers and instructed the Calcutta High Court to settle the dispute. The High Court's decision came in favour of the state government.

Tata Motors then challenged this decision in the division bench of the Calcutta High Court, which declared the state government's Land Rehabilitation and Development Act 2011 as illegal and unconstitutional. This meant that Tata Motors could again lay its hands on the Singur land.

But the state government challenged this decision in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court even asked Tata Motors to return the disputed land to the farmers as the firm had already set up a manufacturing facility in Sanand, Gujarat. The automotive manufacturer cleared its intentions to retain the Singur land.

After around two years of hearing, the Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed the 2006 land deal, thus giving a major setback to Tata Motors.

Source: LiveMint