Gandhinagar, July 1 (IANS) The Gujarat High Court Thursday said it will take up a review petition by farmers opposing the upcoming Nirma cement plant at Mahuva in Bhavnagar district only after the appeal pending before the Supreme Court is exhausted.
This was ruled by the division bench of Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyaya and Justice Akil Kureshi.
The matter is listed before the Supreme Court for July 5.
Farmers of about a dozen villages of Mahuva block in the district had launched an agitation against the state government’s decision to grant about 4,000 hectares of land to Nirma for setting up the cement plant.
The land granted included government wasteland, a water body spread over 100 hectares and grazing land. The farmers had contended that the cement plant posed a threat to agriculture and animal husbandry besides causing irreparable damage to the environment.
Shree Mahuva Bandhara Khetiwadi Pariyavaran Bachao Samiti had filed the PIL in the high court in 2009 praying direction to the state government to cancel allocation of the land on which the company proposed to set up its factory.
The Gujarat High Court had in April this year rejected the public interest litigation (PIL) opposing the cement plant.
The judgment was subsequently challenged in the Supreme court and a review petition filed in the Gujarat High Court as well.
