After years of legal battle, Kutch farmers finally lose land to Adani

The Supreme Court on July 10 stayed a Gujarat High Court order asking the state government to resume the process of taking back nearly 108 hectares of grazing land given to the Adani Group in 2005 near the Mundra port.

The order came 13 years after residents of Navinal and Zarpara villages moved the court against a decision to allot 231 acres of ‘gauchar’ (pastoral) land to the Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd.

However, with the apex court ruling in favor of the Adanis, the farmers and villages have lost a long fought legal battle and their hopes of getting back their pastoral land.

Villagers protest

Initially, the Gujarat revenue department allotted 108 acres of land to the Adani Group in 2005. But the villagers came to know about only in 2010 when the Adani Port Special Economic Zone (APSEX) started fencing the gauchar land in Mundra, Kutch.

The villages, home to around 9,000 heads of cattle, challenged the panchayat resolution in a Kutch court. On April 15, 2005, over 3,000 villagers forced the panchayat to cancel the resolution by which 400 hectares (ha) of the gauchar land was given to the company.

However, despite the panchayat denying permission, the revenue department went ahead with the deal. A public interest litigation (PIL) was then filed in the High Court.

Legal battle starts

Over the years, the villagers won the case in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and in the High Court. Both ruled in favour of keeping the pastoral land within the village.

“First thing we did was propose a resolution against the land deal where the pastoral land from two villages was clandestinely granted to the Adanis. We also stated that If the panchayat does not act on this resolution passed by the gram sabha, we will propose to dissolve the village panchayat,” Valji Gadhvi, the convener of the Save Gauchar Committee, told the Federal.

High Court moved

“It has been a long legal battle since then. The Save Gauchar Committee was formed under which we challenged the panchayat resolution in a Kutch court first. We won the case at NGT with the tribunal asking the Gujarat government to reverse its land deal. We filed a PIL in the High Court against the revenue department’s deal to hand over the land. The HC formed a committee to look into the pricing at which the land was sold. Eventually it ordered the state to begin the process of taking back the land from Adanis. We hardly could rejoice out victory when the HC order was challenged in the Supreme Court where we ultimately lost the case,” added Gadhvi.

Noticeably, between 2004 and 2005, the Adani Group that owns the Mundra SEZ in Kutch began to buy land.

Pastoral land

“The company did not stop at Zarpara village. The Adani Group has taken gauchar land in about 10 villages surrounding the Mundra port. Government norms say 16 ha of gauchar land is allocated per 100 animals and cannot be sold under any condition except for defence purposes. By the end of 2011, people in other villages also started agitating against the arbitrary decisions of panchayats,” PV Hathi, an advocate for the villagers, told The Federal.

“But the most shocking part of this case is the price at which price at which the Adanis got the land. A total of 5,465 Hectare (5,46,50,000 square meters) of land was sold to Adani through 30 orders between 2005 to 2007 for SEZ. Adani was charged between Rs. 2.5 to Rs 25 per square meter when the market rate was between Rs 1,000-1,500 per square metre. The District Valuation Committee set up by the then Gujarat government had set the price very low,” he said.

Rules violated

“Even then the rates charged in most cases are much lower than the rates prescribed by the valuation committee,” he added.

Many other rules were allegedly bent to accommodate the Adanis too. As per government rules, the Collector does not have the authority to allot or sell such a huge area of land nor can he or she grant it without conducting a public auction. But in this case, Collector of Kutch signed off all the applications without due process.

Land allocation

“Twenty-five applications for land were submitted on two consecutive days –December 22, 23 in 2003. The other five were submitted on December 23, 2003, September 5, 2004, August 23, 2006 and September 3, 2006. The submission date of the last application is not available in government records. Twenty-three orders for sale of land were released on a single day: September 15, 2005,” Hathi said.

According to a report submitted by the MB Shah commission set up by the High Court, “In 2005 the land rate for commercial purpose as described in the Jantri was Rs 1,000 and rates of gauchar land was Rs 1,300 per square meter. However, the state government’s rate review committee recovered only Rs 7.50 per meter instead of prescribed rate of Rs 300 per meter considering 30 per cent premium rate. For the 49.17 lakh square meter of gauchar land that government handed to Adani, the government should have charged Rs 147.46 crore. However, the state government’s committee charged only Rs 3.68 crore. The Commission should recover Rs 143.77 crore, the difference, the amount from Adani at 24 percent interest.”

Animal husbandry

Animal husbandry is the second largest industry in Kutch with the district being dominated by Maldharis or Rabaris (traditional pastoral communities) whose only mode of living is based on the resources of animal husbandry.

In the 14 villages in the APSEZ project area where animal husbandry Is the primary source of earning, the shrinking sources of livelihood have caused an increase in the migration of the pastoral communities.

Life derailed

“Over the last 15 years, migration has increased by over 50 from our villages. Every summer, the villages get deserted, with the community migrating in search of greener pastures and fodder for the animals through the coastal Saurashtra region.

“The practice has hampered our children the most. For six to seven months, they are unable to go to school. But we also cannot watch our animals die,” says Gadhvi.