Gujarat HC stays construction at Adani Port SEZ

The order of the division bench of acting Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattarcharya and Justice J B Pardiwala came on the PIL filed by Shabeer Khalifa, a local.

The court said that construction activity should not start till the state government takes a decision on the show cause notices issued to the company last year.

The group acquired over 7,000 hectares of land in July 2005, through 26 orders passed by the state government on a single day, the petitioner's lawyer said.

The petition says that the group was allotted the land on the condition that it would complete the construction within two years, but the group later sought extension.

In February 2008, state government passed a resolution stating that construction should start within six months and should be completed within three years.

But no construction began till 2011, after which the company was served a show cause notice by the government in March 2011, as to why the land should not become a government property.

Today's order is another blow to the Adani Group. Yesterday, the High Court had stayed construction at Adani SEZ, on a PIL filed by people of Navinal village in Kutch district.