Kerala   

Kerala High Court moved for HMT land deal inquiry

Kochi: The Kerala High Court was approached on Friday seeking a CBI inquiry into the sale of 70 acres of land by HMT Ltd. at Kalamassery in Ernakulam to Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd. (HDIL).

The petition also sought a declaration that HMT Ltd. had no authority to sell the property to the extent of 100 acres assigned to it by the State government free of cost and that the agreement entered into between HDIL and HMT was illegal and void.

The petition was filed by general secretary of the State Human Rights Protection Centre, Thrissur, Joy Kaitharam. The petitioner said that HMT, an instrumentality of the Central government without any authority or consent from the appropriate government, made an agreement with the private company for selling 70 acres of land out of the 878.14 acres of land assigned to it by the State government free of cost for starting a comprehensive industrial unit.

The petitioner said the decision to sell the land was not backed by any government decision or Cabinet sanction. The Industries Minister or any such authority had no legal right to assign public property to any private company or individual.

The decision to sell the land to a private company was taken without following any procedure and without complying with any legal or statutory formalities by extraneous and political consideration. HMT had filed a petition before the High Court challenging the decision of the Taluk Land Board to take possession of 251.40 acres of land from the company. The petitioner said the company had no right to sell or lease out the property. The decision taken by the Industries Minister with the knowledge of the Minister for Revenue to lift the ban on “mutation” of 70 acres of land was not supported by any statutory regulation or sanction from the government, the petitioner said. The exemption given to HMT from the provision of the Kerala Land Reforms Act/Rules was for a public purpose for starting industrial units.

The petitioner said the original proposal of HDIL was to develop townships on the land. However, when HDIL officials met the Industries Minister and the Revenue Minister, the company had made a new proposal of utilisation of 70 per cent of the area for IT-based business (Cyber City). This proposal was only to circumvent the provisions of the Kerala Land Reforms Act as well as to get the benefits of the new IT policy of the State government.

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