Cuttack, July 18: A PIL was filed in Orissa High Court on issuing of work order by the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa (IDCO) in the Posco project area.

The PIL had sought quashing of the work order worth Rs 3.2 crore in the project area in Jagatinghpur district as it was “illegally” awarded without issuing tender notices for it.

On June 20, IDCO issued the work order to a person allegedly without inviting technical or financial bids in violation of the Orissa public works department code. One Bibhuti Bhusan Swain, a resident of Tarataranga area in Jagatinghpur district, has filed the petition, but without any details on the nature of the work order.

The petition is the first PIL to be filed in connection with the Posco steel plant project. It was filed on Friday and the high court was yet to take it up for hearing.

The two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra has been hearing on petitions seeking quashing of forest clearance granted for the Posco project and land acquisition proceedings.

Nishakar Khatua and five other villagers of Govindpur-Dhinkia-Nuagaon had filed two separate writ petitions.

The six villagers have sought high court intervention to “prevent loss of their property and livelihood, which is in the process of being violated and taken away by force by the Orissa government and IDCO”.

The petitioners have contended that they had been residing in the proposed Posco project area for more than three generations and were dependent on forest area for their livelihood. The Orissa government had countered that two of them “do not have any land in villages notified for acquisition”.

The other four had claimed to be in the category of “other forest dwellers” when the land they have “had not been classified as forestland”, the state counsel had argued questioning the maintainability of the petitions.