In Kutch, Gujarat, efforts are underway to reclaim grazing land that was allotted to Adani Ports following a plea to the High Court.
The lawsuit began in 2011 when people from Navinal village petitioned the high court to stop Mundra Port and SEZ Ltd. from receiving 231 acres of grazing property.
AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government ended a 13-year-old dispute over land allocation in Mundra’s Navinal village in Kutch district on Friday by informing the high court that it had decided to reclaim 108 hectares of land from Adani Port and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) and restore it as grazing land.
Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi’s bench ordered the government to carry out this decision, and they scheduled a hearing for July 26 to see how the government’s decision has been implemented.
The issue began in 2011 when the people of Navinal village filed a petition with the Gujarat High Court contesting the 2005 award of 231 acres of grazing land to Mundra Port and SEZ Ltd. (now APSEZ Ltd.).
The peasants’ attorney, Anand Yagnik, contended that this distribution gave them insufficient space for their livestock to graze.
The state government’s decision to provide APSEZL 231 of the 276 acres of grazing property, leaving the villages with only 45 acres for grazing, led the villagers to argue that there was a severe lack of grazing area. The locals further contended that the government resolution only permitted the distribution of property for industrial uses in cases where there was surplus grazing land, making the allocation of this land unconstitutional. It was emphasized that the common land, which served as a communal resource and could not be privatized, was already in short supply for the villagers’ cattle grazing needs.
To be sure, the state’s pledge to provide more land and a later review petition in 2015 claiming less land available led to the resolution of the initial public interest lawsuit in 2014. Following that, on a petition filed by the farmers, which the high court was considering, contempt procedures were started.
The state government on July 4 approved a plan to reclaim the land from APSEZ Ltd., the administration informed the high court on Friday in papers submitted by the district collector of Kutch and Gujarat’s additional chief secretary, Manoj Kumar Das. The goal of this site is to restore Navinal Village’s grazing area.
After considering the affidavits, the court ordered the state to promptly carry out its ruling.
In support of APSEZL, senior attorney Mihir Thakor protested to the court’s orders, claiming that the company’s rights would be violated and that the state government could not recapture land that had already been granted to APSEZL twenty years prior.
If the corporation wished to contest the government’s ruling, the bench instructed it to submit a different petition.
