SC junks land acquisition for Anil Agarwal foundation's varsity in Odisha

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld an Orissa High Court order that cancelled acquisition of agricultural land for Anil Agarwal Foundation's proposed university in the state, saying the entire proposal was vitiated by favouritism and was violative of right to equality under the Constitution.

It directed the Odisha government and the foundation to return the acquired land to the farmers and also slapped a fine of ₹5 lakh on the latter.

While reprimanding the Odisha government for such "illegal" land acquisition process, a bench of justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari refused to interfere with the 2010 high court judgement that quashed the land acquisition for the project launched by Vedanta Foundation, now called Anil Agarwal Foundation.


Terming the acquisition of 10,000 acres of agricultural land by the Foundation illegal, it said, "lands to be acquired are agricultural lands belonging to 6,000 families and their only source of livelihood is on the agricultural lands, which cannot be compensated in terms of money, therefore, the proposal made now has to be rejected outright".

It further said that "undue benefits were proposed/in fact offered and given to the beneficiary company providing undue largesse".

Initially the foundation wanted 15,000 acres of land in Puri. About 8,000 acres had been acquired when the high court intervened in the matter. However, the foundation argued in the apex court that it could set up the university with 3,837 acres.

The 103-page Supreme Court judgement said "initially, 15,000 acres was proposed to be acquired, which is now reduced to 3837 acres. Meaning thereby, the proposal was for exaggerated demand". "This was mala fide intention on the part of the appellant company/foundation," it said.

Both Anil Agarwal Foundation and the Odisha government had appealed against the high court order.