SC stays Goa SEZ land cancellation Notices issued to Centre, Goa Govt, GIDC
HERALD CORRESPONDENT NEW DELHI, JAN 10 The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre, Goa Government and Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) asking them to maintain status quo, staying the November order of the Bombay High Court (Goa Bench) upholding the cancellation of land allotment to seven Special Economic Zone (SEZ firms). The direction came on a bunch of petitions filed by realty tycoon K Raheja’s group and other companies, aggrieved of the High Court decision. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma issued notices on the petitions stating that cancellation of the land allotment by GIDC put the promoters to immense loss from investments already sunk. The petitions were filed by the aggrieved companies, namely K Raheja & Corporation, Peninsula Pharma Research Centre, Planetview Mercantile Co, Inox Mercantile Company and Paradigm Logistics & Distribution. They contended that the SEZs notified by the Centre under the SEZ Act cannot be cancelled by the State Government that had approved their projects and allotted the land. The HC had dubbed the allotments to all SEZ promoters as arbitrary, “in undue haste and without proper scrutiny of the applications” and directed the State Government to allot land afresh to the developers for any other purpose except SEZ. In its petition, Raheja group claimed to have already spent Rs 190 crore for setting up a multi-product and service park and asserted that the Goa Government’s reversal of the SEZ policy and cancellation of SEZ land was “wholly illegal and ultra virus”. The GIDC had acquired private properties and allotted them to the promoters of the SEZs, while the High Court upheld the Goa Government’s decision to cancel the SEZ land to return it to the original owners. Nearly 32 lakh sq metres of GIDC land was allotted to the companies for setting up SEZs, which was also notified by the central Government.