VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court has asked the Centre to maintain status quo on the sale of lands and assets of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP). When a batch of petitions, challenging the privatisation of VSP came up for hearing on Thursday, the Centre made it clear that it has taken a decision, in principle, to disinvest its stake in the plant and clarified there was no proposal to sell its assets.
A batch of PILs challenging the proposal to disinvest the Centre’s stake were filed by former IPS officer VV Lakshminarayana, Praja Shanti Party president KA Paul and others. Some others filed petitions seeking directions to the VSP management to provide jobs to the land oustees as assured earlier.
During the last hearing, the bench asked the Centre to place before it details regarding the Act by which it is privatising the plant and asked if it took any decision on the letter written by the chief minister regarding alternative measures for strengthening the plant instead of privatising it. It also wanted to know if the Centre consulted the employees, workers and other stakeholders before taking a decision on privatising the plant.
‘Centre selling PSUs in name of disinvestment’
When the PILs came up for hearing on Thursday, CVR Rudraprasad, representing the Centre, informed the court that they have filed a counter as per its directions. Responding to it, Advocate General S Sriram said the counter filed by the Centre had nothing new. The AG said some English words were added and a fresh counter was filed. Sriram said the counter does not contain the details sought by the court—including no reference to the contents of the letter written by the CM.
Additional Solicitor General B Narasimha Sharma, on behalf of the Centre, said that the finance ministry has responded to the Chief Minister’s letter in 2021 itself. Narasimha Sharma informed the court that it has taken a decision, in principle, to privatise the plant, but there was no progress in the process. The ASG also informed the court that they have no proposal to sell the lands of the plant. He asserted that the Centre would not sell even an acre of VSP lands.
Responding to this, the bench asked him if the Centre will maintain status quo on the sale of VSP lands, to which counsel Narasimha Sharma agreed. One of the petitioner’s counsel Y Balaji urged the court to record the same, to which the court responded positively and issued interim orders to maintain status quo.
Intervening, Praja Shanti Party chief KA Paul, who is one of the petitioners, said the Centre is selling away PSUs in the name of disinvestment. He said several major industries have gone into the hands of private people and hoped that the VSP does not meet the same fate.