1 week ago
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The Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the State government and the revenue officials not to take any further steps for two months on the notification issued for acquiring land of the Cheruvally Estate for the proposed Sabarimala greenfield airport.
Justice Viju Abraham passed the interim order on a writ petition field by the Yana Charitable Trust (formerly known as Gospel for Asia) and its managing trustee and others challenging the acquisition proceedings and entrusting the the Centre for Management Development, Thiruvananthapuram, with conducting a social assessment study.
According to them, the action of the government was illegal. The government had adopted a new method to somehow grab the property under the ownership and possession of the petitioners. The objection raised by the petitioners during the social impact assessment study was ignored, disregarded and not dealt with in the final social impact assessment report. The agency was a research-driven management consulting and training institution under the government. The present acquisition proceedings was mala fide. The attempt of the government was to somehow or the other take over the land of the petitioners, as the agency is deeply connected with the Industries department.
For PPP projects
The petitioners contended that the purpose of the acquisition has been mentioned incorrectly in the notification as “public purposes” whereas it ought to have been “acquisition for public-private partnership projects”. It was done only to circumvent the statutory requirements of obtaining consent of 70% of the inhabitants mandated under Section 2(2)(b)(ii) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
The court also ordered that the petitioners and the revenue officials shall maintain the status quo with respect to the property.
