SC to rule on legality of Singur land acquisition for Nano project

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Wednesday will pronounce its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the acquisition of land in West Bengal's Singur for Tata Motors for its ambitious Nano small car project.

The bench of Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice Arun Mishra will pronounce the judgment on a batch of petitions which were filed way back in 2008 by a number of people aggrieved by the acquisition of land by the then Left Front government.

The land acquisition was also challenged the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights which had contended that acquisition of the Singur land for public purpose and then handing it over to Tata Motors for its Nano project was illegal and in breach of land acquisition law.

The Association had told the court that there was a separate procedure under the land acquisition law for acquiring land for a project of a private company, and that the land acquired by the government for public purposes could be given to a private company only for constructing dwelling units of the workers employed with it and no other purpose.

With this, the court will also decide on West Bengal government's plea challenging the Calcutta High Court's June 22, 2012 order holding unconstitutional its Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act to reclaim 400 acres given to Tata Motors for the project.

--IANS

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