Noida: HC wants 10-year record on acquisition,industries

The bench comprising Justices S U Khan,Ashok Bhushan and V K Shukla asked the authorities to furnish the information while it was hearing petitions from three villages — Ghori Bachcheda,Saakipur and Patwari.

The hearings in these three villages concluded on Wednesday.

“The court has asked the two authorities to furnish the records of the last 10 years on the notifications issued for land acquisition and how many industries have come to these two cities. Also,the court wanted to know whether they had taken the approval from the NCRPB. Since the region comes in the National Capital Region,the authorities have to get their regional plans approved from the Planning Board,” said counsel for petitioners from Ghori Bachcheda,Saurav Basu.

The arguments of the petitioners remained more or less the same as with other villages. “Our main prayers were unjust use of urgency clause,no utilisation of land despite acquiring it on an urgent basis,selling land acquired in the name of planned industrial development to private developers by changing land use,” said Basu. Hearing will continue on Thursday.

HC dismisses plea against Varun Gandhi’s election as mp

Allahabad: The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition filed by V M Singh,the rival Congress candidate from Pilibhit,challenging the election of BJP leader Varun Gandhi as Pilibhit MP on the grounds that he divided the two communities and votes by giving inflammatory speeches.

Terming the petition “dead”,the court rejected it mainly on the ground that the allegations made therein were not supported by facts and relevant documents. The petition suffered from “material infirmities”,the court said.

Rejecting Singh’s petition of 2009,Justice S K Tripathi said that the Supreme Court has already held several times that a right to elect,though fundamental to democracy,is neither a fundamental right nor a common law right. It is pure and simple statutory right. “An election petition (which challenges election of a candidate) is a statutory proceeding to which neither the common law nor the principles of equity apply but only those rules which the statute makes and applies,” said the court,citing various Supreme Court judgements. The judgement further said: “In the trial of election dispute the court is put in a straight jacket. Therefore,an election petition,which does not conform to the statutory requirements,is a dead petition and must be dismissed outrightly.”