The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the Gujarat High Court order, which had permitted the Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones (APSEZ) to reportedly take over the piece of land measuring 34 acres, adjacent to the latter’s Mundra Port.
The Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice B.V. Nagarathna referred the matter back to the High Court, while permitting the claim made by State-run Central Warehousing Corporation over the same patch of 34 acres.
Diring the hearing of the case, the top court of the country took note of the diagonally opposite stands taken by two Ministries of the Union of India, stating that it did not augur well for the Central government.
It referred to the observations made in the Lloyd Electric and Engineering Limited vs State of Himachal Pradesh (2016) case and said that on one hand, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had held that the delineation/denotification as sought by the CWC was not permissible in law.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution had taken a stand that such a delineation/denotification was permissible in law and also stated precedents for the same.
The Apex Court directed the Union of India to evolve a mechanism to ensure that whenever such conflicting stands were taken by different departments, they were resolved at the governmental level itself.
It directed the Registry to furnish a copy of the verdict to Attorney General R. Venkataramani, so that he could use his “good offices and do the needful”.