The Bombay High Court at Goa on Monday directed that filing and exchanging of pleadings pertaining to petitions on Special Economic Zone (SEZ) be completed by May 7, 2009.Declining to adjourn the hearing after vacations, the High Court asked counsels appearing for SEZ companies to complete the pleadings by May 7.
The Division Bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and U D Salvi made it clear that no further adjournments would be granted. The petitions are likely to be taken up for final disposal after vacations.
The SEZ promoters - Meditab Specialities Pvt Ltd, Peninsular Pharma Research Centre Pvt Ltd, Paradigm Logistic & Distribution Private Ltd, Planetview Mercantile Company Pvt Ltd, Inox Mercentile Company Pvt Ltd and Maxgrow Finlease Pvt Ltd, are before the High Court.
They have challenged the show cause notices issued to them by Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) for withdrawing the land allotted in industrial estates. The GIDC decided to take back the land allotted after the State Government reversed its decision of allowing SEZs in Goa when it realized that people will oppose SEZs tooth and nail. It was the first major decision of chief minister Digambar Kamat despite having pro-SEZ ministers in the cabinet.
The GIDC has come under cloud over allotment of to SEZ developers . – it has been directly indicted in Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report. The CAG has revealed poor financial management and irregularities conducted by GIDC in allotment of land. Deficiencies and irregularities resulted a loss of Rs 127.25 crore to the Corporation, says the report.
Allotment of land to SEZ projects was blatantly irregular. The Corporation allotted 38.41 lakh sq meter land for setting up seven SEZs at three of its industrial estates at Verna, Sancoale and Keri.Contention of the petitioners is that as they have invested heavily in SEZ projects and suffered huge losses due to the stop work orders of the government. On the other hand a couple of Public Interest litigations
(PILs) filed by villagers of Keri, Sancoale and Verna, challenging GIDC’s decision to allot land in their respective villages on lease agreements to SEZs stakeholders, are also pending before the High Court. Their charge is GIDC fraudulently allotted land to SEZ developers.
Courtesy: oheraldo
