Singur Land: Tata Motors to Move Supreme Court
posted on Jun 28, 2011 @ 5:27PM
Tata Motors Ltd. has said it will approach the Supreme Court of India to seek a stay on the West Bengal state government's move to return to farmers a piece of land, which was earlier allocated to the company to set up a minicar-manufacturing plant.
The company's statement came after the Calcutta High Court, the top court in the eastern state, refused to stay a law enacted by the West Bengal government to take over 997.17 acres allotted to build a facility to manufacture the Nano, the world's cheapest passenger car.
Tata Motors, India's largest auto maker by sales, had planned to build the facility at the land at Singur near West Bengal's capital city of Kolkata. But the plan was abandoned in October 2008 following violent protests by farmer groups over acquisition of farmland, and the car-manufacturing project was later shifted to the western state of Gujarat.
On June 14, after a new government came to power in the state, West Bengal passed the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act 2011 to take over the land and return 400 acres from that to farmers. The state plans to use the remaining land for socio-economic projects. In a statement late Monday, Tata Motors said "as per the country's legal procedures, the company will agitate the matter before the Supreme Court."