The Uttarakhand HC issued notices to State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand ltd (SIIDCUl) and Principal Secretary, Revenue, in a public interest litigation filed on the issue of land allotment in Chharba village to SIIDCUl for facilitating the establishment of a Coca Cola bottling plant.
It may be mentioned the SIIDCUl was allotted 60 acres of land in Chharba village by the Revenue department in 2013 and in turn SIIDCUl signed an MoU with Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages for setting up of a bottling plant in the area, a move which had elicited strong opposition from Chharba residents, environmentalists and concerned citizens. The PIl filed by Citizens For Green Doon termed the allotment of land in Chharba village by the Revenue department as illegal, since the land was Gram Sabha land and only given to Doon University for setting up a campus in 2006. The petition claimed that since Doon University did not use the land, it should have automatically been reverted to Gram Sabha and the Revenue department had no right to allot it to SIIDCUl after 7 years.
CFGD chief coordinator Dr Nitin Pandey said, a two-member bench comprising Justice Bl Verma and Justice SK Gupta after hearing the arguments, accepted the petition and gave the respondents three weeks to reply. It is pertinent to mention here that following the MoU signed between SIIDCUl and Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages last year for the Rs 600 crore bottling plant at Chharba, a joint inspection by Forest department, District administration and SIIDCUl officials had established that the 60 acres land marked for this purpose falls under the deemed forest category with more than 70,000 trees planted here by the department.
The Forest (Conservation) Act is applicable on this land and its utilisation for non-forestry purposes requires the permission of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.