SC trashes plea of Surat APMC against HC verdict ordering auction of five star hotel built on market yard land

    New Delhi, Apr 19 (PTI) “Thank God! The Gujarat High Court intervened. It is a scam,” the Supreme Court observed on Friday while dismissing an appeal of the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) of Surat against a high court order for auctioning a five star hotel constructed on the land meant for a market yard.
    The bench refused to interfere with the March 27 order of the Gujarat High Court by which it had asked the state government to take possession of the five star hotel.
    “How can the Agriculture Produce Market Committee construct a five-star hotel on the land meant for constructing market yards for agricultural products?” a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala asked when senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the APMC, alleged it has been divested of its own land and properties by the high court.
    “Tell us from the Act (on APMC) that you have got the right to build a shopping mall and the five star hotel on the land... you should have returned the land back to the state,” the bench said.
    The high court had also ordered a public auction of the property and directed the authorities to deposit the amount to the state's APMC fund.
    “Thank God! The High Court intervened! This is a scam... The government (officials) may be a willing accomplice,” the CJI said.
    The bench, however, permitted the Hotel Shilpis India Private Ltd to approach the high court seeking refund of money it had invested in the hotel project.
    “The construction of a Five Star Hotel at a cost of Rs 98 crores utilized from the ‘Market Committee Fund’ that too then leasing it out to a private person cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be said to be related to or ancillary to or connected to the main object and purpose of establishment of the Market Committee under Section 11 of the Market Act’ 1963,” the high court had said.
    "The stand of the state that the proceeds of the lease rent to be provided by the private party to whom the building constructed as a five star hotel has been leased, will be credited in the Market Committee Fund and will be utilized only for the purposes specified under the law and, thus, giving it a guise of public purpose is only an eye-wash, an effort to legalise the illegal act of the Market Committee," the high court had said.
    It had ordered the closure of all activities in the mall that were not for the welfare of the farmers.
    The matter had reached the high court in 2014 by way of a PIL.
    It was alleged that the Surat APMC was constructing a mall and a five star hotel on 20,000 sq mt land and shifting the market yard to another place.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)