NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed its concern over the Union governments two ministries taking a contradictory view with regard to denotification of land adjacent to Adani-run Mudra port and asked the Centre to evolve a mechanism to ensure that such conflicting stands were resolved at their level itself.
We are of the considered view that it does not augur well for the Union of India to speak in two contradictory voices. The two departments cannot be permitted to take stands which are diagonally opposite, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and C T Ravikumar said.
The court directed its Registry to furnish a copy of the judgment to the Attorney General to use his good offices and do the needful.
The case related to a dispute between state-run Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and Adani Ports Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) over a 34-acre plot adjacent to Mudra Port in Gujarat.
The bench set aside the Gujarat High Court division bench's June 30, 2021 order that asked CWC to get approval or a waiver as a SEZ compliant unit for its warehouse facility comprising of two godowns with a total capacity of 66,000 MTs on the 34-acre plot.
The CWC questioned the unlawful inclusion of its land in the SEZ area. It claimed Adani had misrepresented the authorities so as to take away its 34 acre land.
The top court, which asked the single judge of the HC to decide the issue afresh, noted with concern the two different and contradictory stands taken by the Centre's two Ministries.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry here was of the view that the delineation/denotification of the area from APSEZL, as sought by the CWC, was not permissible in law. It maintained there is no provision in the SEZ Act and Rules which empowered the authority to grant such a waiver from complying with the conditions/obligations applicable to SEZ Units.
The Ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, on the contrary, took a divergent view, by holding such a delineation/denotification was permissible and there were precedents for doing so.
It also said that shifting of the warehouses to the alternate locations would be against the interest of CWC as well as public revenue.
The CWC had also raised apprehensions that the alternative plot offered by APSEZ outside the SEZ, during the bid to settle the dispute amicably, was around 25 kms from its present godown was unsuitable and would cause considerable loss to its business.
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