Tata Motors on Friday alleged that the West Bengal Government “trespassed” on the Singur land and also argued before the Calcutta High Court that it had not “voluntarily relinquished right of property” at Singur.
The Tata Motors counsel, Mr Samaraditya Pal, while challenging the constitutional validity of the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011 said that “abandonment” ought to mean voluntary relinquishing of right to property without any element of “coercion”. “This, however, has not been the case in Singur,” Mr Pal observed.
According to the auto major's counsel, re-possession of the Singur land by the State Government tantamount to “gross acts of trespass”.
He rebutted the Government's contention that Tata Motors' relocation of the proposed plant meant “abandonment”. Mr Pal said, referring to a judgement of the Punjab High Court, that “abandonment has to be voluntary, absolute and intentional and without coercion. A person abandoning has to divest his possession”.
Further countering the claims made by the State Government of “non-utilisation” of land at Singur, the counsel said while the small car project may have failed to take off from the site, it did not mean non-utilisation of land.
“Utilisation does not necessarily mean completion of the project,” Mr Pal maintained. “There has not been any ‘non-usage' (of the land) at all,” he added.
Maintaining that the company's decision to relocate to Uttarakhand and Gujarat were not at its “volition”, the auto major's counsel argued that the company had “succumbed to force” — of blockades that prevented the ingress and egress of men and materials from the plant site. He added that repeated blockades since 2006 had forced the company to relocate.
Hearing will resume on Monday.