CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has dismissed a PIL filed by seven former employees of Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) seeking to quash a 1991 MoU and a 1994 sale deed through which 333.34 acre government land at Choudwar were sold to the company for `12 crore.
The two-judge bench comprising Justice Krishna Shripad Dixit and Justice Chittaranjan Dash rejected the plea, holding that the challenge, mounted over three decades after the transaction, lacked merit.
The petitioners had alleged that the negotiated sale was illegal and that public property must be disposed of through auction. They also contended that BILT violated grant conditions by converting industrial land for housing purposes after shutting its paper mill in 2003. The PIL, filed on April 25, 2024, termed the transaction fraudulent and against public interest.
In its February 12 order, the court observed, “True it is that the disposal of State Larges like the lands in question should ordinarily be by public auction.
However, that is not the inviolable thumb rule. Exceptional circumstances may warrant a deviation from the beaten track. At this length of time, a High Court cannot undertake a deep inquiry as to why the mode of public tender was not adopted. Digging decades-old grave serves no purpose.”
While the petitioners argued that the sale price was inadequate, the court said no statistical sale data from the relevant period had been produced. “Court cannot assume that a contract of sale of the kind, the government would enter into for inadequate consideration,” the bench said, adding, “It again is difficult to attribute motives to the government more particularly when the decision was taken after deliberation of a committee headed by then chief minister.”
On the allegation that the company was developing housing layouts for profit, the bench said, “Once sale takes place, as mentioned in Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the buyers becomes the absolute owner and he can do whatever he wants, with the property subject to other laws.”