Cuttack, Sept. 11: Orissa High Court has clamped restrictions on further use of the government land allotted three years ago to a private party to build the city’s first miniplex at Mahanadi Vihar.

The Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) had allotted a 9,548-sqft plot on auction lease to SGBL (India) Limited, Bhubaneswar, for the purpose.

The court imposed the restriction while hearing a PIL yesterday on the alleged grabbing of government land adjacent to the allotted plot by the private party. The PIL, filed by Sanjay Kumar Jena, 42, a resident of Mahanadi Vihar, sought the court’s intervention against the development body’s inaction.

The authority neither took any step to demolish the unauthorised construction nor did it pass any order to stop the construction even after the state vigilance had detected it during an inquiry it carried out on local public demand, the petition alleged.

Last December, the court had issued a notice to the authority to file a response within a week. On September 5, when the development body sought one week’s time, the court had allowed its secretary three days to submit records, along with details, related to how much land was allotted to SGBL (India) Limited to build the miniplex.

But when the petition came up yesterday, the CDA counsel sought more time. “The division bench of Chief Justice Amitava Roy and Justice A.K. Rath allowed time till listing of the matter next week, but directed SGBL (India) Limited not to utilise the land in any manner till disposal of the case,” petitioner counsel Narendra Sahu said.

“The court issued the interim order in response to our fresh petition seeking intervention against the alleged bid by SGBL (India) Limited to give the land allotted to it on sub-lease to a third party,” Sahu said.

According to the petition, “there is not an inch of land left for common use of the people” due to the grabbing of government land beside the plot. The construction undertaken for the miniplex in excess to the land allotted on auction lease at the entrance to a housing area “will create traffic hazards for the locality”, the PIL contends.

Official documents attached to the petition indicated that the CDA had allotted 9,548sqft on lease to SGBL (India) Limited against a payment of Rs 1.25 crore on December 28, 2010.

The vigilance inquiry had detected deviation involving construction over 946.28 square metres (58.92 square metres excess). Besides, there had been construction over excess 673.70 square metres on four floors in deviation of the approved plan.

After the vigilance inquiry, the authority had only initiated an unauthorised construction case against SGBL managing director Sankar Gupta on December 3, 2012, but not followed it up with any action to demolish the illegal construction and stop further construction, the petition alleged.