HYDERABAD: Justice MS Ramachandra Rao of the High Court has reserved his order on a petition filed by Unitech Limited seeking a refund of its amount of Rs 162 crore paid to the state government in 2008 towards the development of an integrated township project on 164 acres of land at Badwel in Ranga Reddy district. It was not proper to trouble the company citing the dispute of division of assets and liabilities between APIIC and TSIIC, the court told the Telangana government.
In 2008, the company emerged as the successful bidder in the auction conducted by HMDA for development of an integrated township on the subject land. The company agreed to pay Rs 4.20 crore per acre and paid Rs 162 crore to the government. Later, litigation arose over the title of the land and the government lost the case in the Supreme Court.
Even after losing the rights over the land the government has not refunded the amount paid by the company. Aggrieved by the same, Unitech approached the High Court with a plea for refund of its Rs162 crore along with interest.
When the matter came up for hearing recently, special counsel of Telangana A Sanjeev Kumar told the court that there was no need to pay interest on the said amount. Intervening, justice Rao pointed out that there was a clause in the agreement reached with the petitioner company for payment of amount with interest. “Why was a land which has dispute over ownership rights was given to the company? The government dared to enter into an agreement with the company in spite of land title dispute and took money from the company and utilised it. Now, the company has been made a scapegoat by not repaying the amount citing various reasons,” the judge remarked.
The special counsel said that the company’s amount would be paid without interest as per provisions of the AP Reorganization Act. As the assets and liabilities of AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation and TS Industrial Infrastructure Corporation were not yet bifurcated, the Telangana government would give back 42 per cent of the total amount to the company and the remaining 58 percent would have to be paid by the AP government, he added. The judge said that it was for the state to pay the entire amount to the company as the subject land was located in Telangana.