In a significant development, the Orissa High Court (HC) today declined to grant interim stay on acquisition of forest land by the state government at the site of the Posco’s proposed $12 billion dollar steel project near Paradip.
The court, however, directed to maintain status quo on the acquisition of private land for the mega project.
Hearing to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on the matter, a division bench comprising of Chief Justice V Gopala Gowda and Justice BN Mahapatra ruled that staying acquisition of forest land at the project site would not be in public interest for a project of this scale which is expected to create employment and generate huge revenues.
But the bench stayed land acquisition notification under Section 6(1) of Land Acquisition Act for private land in the project area ordering that status quo be maintained till the disposal of the writ petition.
Two PILs were filed in the Orissa High Court by the villagers of Gobindpur and Nuagaon in May demanding the stoppage of land acquisition work for the Posco project.
In their appeal, the villagers had pointed out that the state government had anot implemented Forest Rights Act (FRA) at the project site and they had not agreed to the takeover of forest land for the integrated steel plant as required under the provisions of FRA.
According to the PIL, the rights of villagers of Posco affected villages under Section 4 of Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act- 2006 have not been protected due to illegal land acquisition process. So the villagers urged the court to stop the land acquisition process in their villages till their rights are protected.
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It may be noted the South Korean steel major Posco requires about 1621 hectares of land out of which 1253 hectares is forest land.
Counsel for the petitioners Jayant Das said, they may move another petition before the court to seek a stay on tree-felling by Posco and state government officials in the acquired forest land.