In a move that brought relief to Chharba villagers, the Supreme Court has denied intervening in the case where the Nainital High Court had ordered the Uttarakhand government to return about 100 acres of land to the Chharba gram panchayat.
In April 2014, the Nainital High Court gave an order which stated that land meant for a Coca-Cola plant should be returned to the Chharba gram panchayat.
Coca-Cola’s plan to set up a bottling plant in Chharba was cancelled, but, SIDCUL was able to receive permission from the gram panchayat to transfer the land to Indian Oil Corporation, Sanjay Rawat, Additional General Manager (Civil) at SIDCUL said.
The State government decided to give the land to Indian Oil Corporation instead of following the High Court order and it approached the Supreme Court on the case. On Monday, the Supreme Court said it would not intervene in the Nainital High Court decision. However, the Supreme Court permitted the State government to file a review petition in the Nainital High Court.
Earlier in 2005, the Chharba gram panchayat transferred land to the State government to set up a university campus, but, the university was never constructed on the acquired land.
In April, 2013 a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCCBPL) and Uttarakhand Government, according to which HCCBPL would set up a Rs. 600 crore bottling plant in 60 acres of land in the village.
Chharba, which is around 32 kilometres from Dehradun, has around 70,000 trees. The construction of the bottling plant would result in the cutting of majority of these trees, which would change the area into a dry belt, said Indra Singh Negi, a social-activist associated with the struggle to keep out Coca-Cola from Chharba. She also added that to protect the area from the bottling plant, the villagers took to the streets against the plant when the news of the MoU was heard.
Nitin Pandey, the co-ordinator of Citizens for Green Doon, an organisation working for the protection of environment in the Dehradun area filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Nainital High Court for the land to be returned to the gram panchayat.
Mr Pandey said that after seven years the land was transferred to the State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited (SIDCUL) without the concurrence of the gram panchayat.
