A betel vine farmer at the proposed Posco site. Telegraph picture

Cuttack/Jagatsinghpur, May 26: Orissa High Court today decided to proceed with adjudication on the writ petition challenging the land acquisition proceedings for the Posco project along with a plea for interim stay order on it, only after submission of details by the petitioners on their ownership over land in the area.

Accordingly, the vacation court directed the petitioners to submit their land ownership details in the form of Record of Rights (RORs) by May 30. The court fixed June 3 for hearing the case.

Nishakar Khatua of Govindpur had filed the writ petition along with five others — Baragi Charan Nayak, Pramod Kumar Bardan and Tushar Kanti Dalai (all three from Govindpur), Debendra Swain (Dhinkia) and Nityananda Behera (Nuagaon).

The court bench of Justice I. Mohanty and Justice S.K. Mishra issued the direction after taking note of the affidavits filed by the Orissa government and the Posco India Private Limited.

Land acquisition at Jagatsinghpur, however, was stopped for a day due to scorching heat. “Workers and officials involved in the operation wanted a day’s rest,” additional district magistrate Sarojkanta Choudhury told newspersons. The op eration will resume on Friday.

While seeking quashing of the land acquisition proceedings the petitioners had claimed that they were “owners and persons interested in the acquisition of their piece of land”. The petitioners had further stated that “they depend on land for their livelihood and shall be deprived of the same by the acquisition of land”.

The affidavits raised objections on the petition’s maintainability on the ground that it had no land details in the form of RORs of the petitioners in the said villages.

According to the government, the petition amounted to “abuse of the process of law” as the petitioners had claimed to be traditional forest dwellers while challenging in another petition the forest clearance granted by the Centre to the Posco project.

“In view of it, the petitioners are not liable to any of the relief sought for,” said Syed Nayar Ahmed, additional secretary, department of revenue and disaster management.

Posco India had, in its affidavit, contended that the petition was not maintainable in the absence of the identity and extent of land the petitioners purportedly owned. “It is also uncertain whether the petitioners are genuinely aggrieved persons or are mere mischief mongers who seek to derail the process of land acquisition,” said Gee Woong Sung, managing director of Posco India.

“The project is a developmental work of great magnitude beneficial for the state, its people and the country and stalling or discontinuing by virtue of any interim order would prejudice the cause which is for a public purpose and the company will suffer irreparable loss and injury,” Sung said.

The integrated steel plant proposed to be set up by Posco at Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district with an investment of $ 12-billion (Rs 51,000 crore) is considered to be the largest ever foreign direct investment (FDI) in India.

In a related development, an imposter who had duped many unemployed youths assuring them of job in the proposed Posco steel plant was arrested today. Prasanna Kumar Mohapatra, the alleged imposter, had collected a huge amount from many people during the last two years.

It was alleged that the accused had floated a fictitious Posco India Port Plant Workers’ Union having its office in Kujang. The glib-talking man used to impress upon job seekers by assuring them jobs in the proposed plant. He was charging registration fees for enrolment in the workers union. The enrolled job seekers later gave more money after the recent central clearance to the project, the police said.

“We arrested him today on the basis of a complaint lodged by a tribal youth from Mayurbhanj district. The FIR by the complainant Gaurmohan Singh alleged that Mahapatra cheated nearly 300 youths from Mayurbhanj district luring them of Posco employment,” said Gupteswar Bhoi, inspector, Kujang police station.