Will challenge tribunal order on compensation to Tatas in SC, says Bengal Minister

Kolkata : West Bengal Minister of State (independent) charge of Finance Department Chandrima Bhattacharya on Tuesday said that the Bengal government will challenge order of arbitral tribunal which has directed the government to pay a compensation of Rs 765.78 crore to Tata Motors Limited (TML) for closing Nano car project in Singur in Hooghly district.

The tribunal had also asked the government to pay an additional interest at the rate of 11 per cent accrued on it since September 2016 to Tata Motors Limited (TML).

“Even the Supreme Court had observed that the manner in which the land was acquired for the project in Singur was unconstitutional. From the apex court verdict it was clear that the land was acquired forcefully from the farmers and later transferred to TM,” the minister said.

She said that during the previous Left Front regime, the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), the nodal wing under the state commerce & industries department, made a secret agreement with TML inserting the clause of compensation through arbitral tribunal. “The move by the corporate entity was a part of a bigger conspiracy plot drafted by the CPI(M),” the minister said.

It is learnt that the top bureaucrats have already started interacting with the legal luminaries regarding challenging the tribunal order. “We are studying the two options on whether to approach the Supreme Court directly or approach the Calcutta High Court,” a state government official said.

After coming to power with a thumping majority in 2006, the then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led Left Front government had announced the Nano project at Singur by TML. Accordingly, the work for setting up of the factory started there after the state government finished the process of land acquisition for the project.

However, the problem started after a small section of the land-owners refused to accept the compensation cheques and started agitating against the land acquisition. The Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee, the principal opposition party at the time, had started a massive agitation at Singur against the land acquisition. In face of the agitation, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata finally withdrew from Singur and Sanand in Gujarat became the new site for the Nano project.

After coming to power in 2011, the first decision of the Mamata Banerjee-led Cabinet was to promulgate a new law for return of land at Singur to all the land-owners.