New Delhi: Adhering to a recent Gujarat High Court order, the state government has agreed to retrieve 108 hectares of cattle grazing land in the Kachch region which had been allotted to Adani Ports in 2005 when Narendra Modi was the chief minister.
Modi is widely seen close to the Adani Group.
Though the land, located in village Navinal was allotted in 2005 by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for the Mundra Port Special Economic Zone project of the Adani Group, the villagers got to know of it only in 2010 when the company began fencing the area.
Since the land was being traditionally used by the villagers for grazing their cattle, they filed a public interest petition (PIL) in 2011, challenging the allocation of the Modi government. The petition contended that such allocation has shrunk the land which was used by them for Gauchar (cattle grazing”, reported Bar and Bench.
The report said, “The court found that there were around 732 animals present, for which an area of 320 acres (around 130 hectares) would be required for their grazing. However, after allocation to the Adani Group, the remaining land available to the villagers was only about 17 hectares.”
Interestingly, while the then Modi government proposed to grant around 387 hectares of government land and around 85 hectares of land belonging to the village panchayat for cattle grazing, it later filed a recall application “showing discrepancy in its initial offer, which led to restoration of proceedings in this matter”.
It led the petitioners to knock at the court’s door once again.
This April 19, hearing the case, it asked the state government to take necessary steps to resolve the matter.
“The replenishment of the gauchar land in village Navinal is the duty of the state,” the court stated.
This past June 21, a two-judge bench led by chief justice of the high court, Sunita Agarwal, gave the state’s revenue department and the collector of Kachin “a last opportunity” to file an affidavit that would comply with its April 19 order.
This July 5, the state came up with a proposal to sort the matter. The court thus gave an order which said “to make good the deficit of gauchar land of village Navinal, it is resolved to resume an area of 108-22-35 hectares from respondent no 7 (Adani Ports) and the proposal in this regard had been moved before the state government on July 1,2024.”
