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HC slams firm for change of land use
Saurabh Malik/TNS

Chandigarh, December 17
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that the action of a company to set up a school and carve out a residential colony on land of farmers acquired for industrial purposes amounted to fraud.

Taking up a PIL filed in-person by advocate Bipan Sharma, along with a bunch of other petitions, a Division Bench of the High Court ruled that a chunk of land in Malerkotla was acquired for the expansion of a paper mill, but was sold to Parsvnath Developers by Vinod Paper Mills Ltd after it suffered losses.

Parsvnath Developers sold it to Tara Health Food Ltd, which is now using the land to run a school as well as carving out a residential colony. This was despite the fact that the no-objection granted by the state came with a categorical stipulation that the land could be used only for industrial purposes.

“After purchasing the land, with a view to earn profits, it has been sought to be sold by carving out residential plots for which an application was moved to the Municipal Council, Malerkotla… In our view, the act of Tara Health Food Ltd tantamount to a fraud on the power of eminent domain (the power to take private property for public use by a state) whereby the land of poor farmers has been acquired in the name of expansion of a paper-making plant and has been disposed of by it to pay off its liabilities during the proceedings of liquidation.

“Tara Health Food Ltd, in no case, can be allowed to use the land in question for any other purpose than industrial for which the no-objection certificate was issued by the Department of Industries”.

Disposing of the petition, the Bench of Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain said: “In case, Tara Health Food Ltd files an undertaking within three months from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order, that it shall use the land in dispute only for industrial purposes, it shall be entitled to retain the land. But if it fails to give anh undertaking in writing within the period stipulated, the land shall be ordered to be restored to the original owners who would return the amount of compensation along with 15 per cent per annum interest from the date of receipt of compensation by them”.