Indiabulls to move top court

NTC mill land sale issue

Securities brokerage firm Indiabulls, which bought the Jupiter Mills property in central Mumbai, will move the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court order setting aside the NTC mill land sales.

Gagan Banga, chief executive officer of the securities brokerage firm, told Business Standard that the firm has decided to move the apex court after seeking legal opinion.

Indiabulls, which bought the property in a joint venture with the US-based real estate investment firm, Farallon, for Rs 276 crore in March this year has already finished demolishing the old structures on the property. The company has plans of building an IT park on the 11.11 acre plot.

Sources in National Textile Corporation (NTC) also indicated that the company has also sought legal opinion on moving the apex court. In a statement yesterday, the company chairman had reiterated that the sale of mill lands followed the top court's brief. NTC has sold five mill lands totalling 47.5 acre for Rs 2,020.75 crore since March this year.

Share prices of textiles mills with vacant land witnessed relentless profit booking on the day two. The scrips of Bombay Dyeing, Dawn Mills, Swan Mills, Victoria Mills and Morarji Realties has declined by 10 per cent in the last two days.

Meanwhile, the state chief secretary R M Prem Kumar told Business Standard that the state's legal department has been asked to study the high court ruling to see whether an amalgamation of the land to be handed over to MCGM and Mhada could be allowed under the verdict.

He also clarified that unless the verdict contained observations detrimental to the state's interests, it would not seek to challenge it in the top court. According to sources in the state secretariat, the issue is likely to feature in tomorrow's cabinet meeting.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while welcoming the verdict has demanded that the state should constitute an inquiry committee to go into the circumstances which led to the controversial amendment to the Development Control Rule (DCR) 58.

Addressing a press conference, the BJP state unit spokesman Madhu Chavan demanded that there should be a time-bound inquiry into DCR amendment and the state government should "accept the court verdict with humility and should not take steps to challenge it in the higher court."

Chavan said, "DCR 58 witnessed modifications for nineteen times to suit builders' interests."

BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha's firm, Lodha Developers, have bid successfully for the four acre Apollo Mills property.