New Delhi, Jan 12 (Inditop.com) The West Bengal government Tuesday approached the Supreme Court for expeditious disposal of Singur farmers’ lawsuit on the land leased to Tata Motors so that future transfer of the land to the Indian Railways for establishing a coach factory is not legally hurdled.
With Tata Motors shifting the Nano small car plant to Gujarat, the state government approached the apex court for early ruling on the farmers’ plea against the Calcutta High Court verdict that upheld the West Bengal government’s acquisition of about 1,000 acres for the Nano car plant there.
Appearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation’s senior counsel Altaf Ahmed said the railway ministry has approached the West Bengal government, evincing interest in the Singur land for setting up a passenger coach factory.
Apprising the bench of the state’s interest to transfer the Singur land to the railways, Ahmed said the government cannot outrightly transfer the land to the railways as the farmers’ lawsuit against the acquisition was pending with the apex court.
Ahmed told the bench, which also included Justice Deepak Verma and Justice B.S. Chauhan, that the railways sent its query on the Singur land a few days back.
Counsel sought an early hearing of the matter. Acceding to his request, the bench decided to hear the matter Feb 5.
A division bench of the Calcutta High court on Jan 18, 2008, upheld the legality of the government acquisition of 997.11 acres at Singur for the Tata Motors’ small car project.
The high court dismissed a bunch of petitions challenging the acquisition of the land for the project.
The January 2008 ruling of the Calcutta High Court has been challenged in the apex court by one of the petitioners, Kedar Nath Yadav.
