Cuttack, July 1: Orissa High Court today issued notices to the state government on petitions seeking intervention for the return of 52 families to their ancestral homes in Dhinkia village at the proposed Posco project area from where they were driven out four years ago.

Sribascha Dalai, along with 10 others, and Chandan Mohanty of Dhinkia village had filed two separate petitions.

“After a preliminary hearing, the division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra issued notices to the chief secretary, home secretary, revenue secretary, revenue divisional commissioner (central division) and collector of Jagatsinghpur,” petitioner counsel Pitambar Acharya told The Telegraph.

“The court also issued notice to Abhay Sahu, the president of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), and fixed July 5 for hearing on the case,” Acharya said.

“While seeking declaration of PPSS as unlawful and illegal, and restraining Abhay Sahu from entering Dhinkia village, the petitioners have sought enforcement of their fundamental rights to life, personal liberty and shelter,” he said.

According to the petitions, 52 families comprising 217 members were forcibly driven out from their ancestral homes in June 2007 allegedly by Abhay Sahu and his group for taking a pro-Posco stand. Those villagers had since been rehabilitated in a shelter camp in Badagabapur village seven km away and were being paid Rs 18 towards their sustenance allowance.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) through its special officer Damodar Sarangi, after a joint visit to the spot along with the Jagatsinghpur collector and the superintendent of police, recommended to the chief secretary to help the 52 families return to their homes in 2008.

The governor of Orissa in response to the representation of the villagers had also issued similar directions to the Jagatsinghpur Collector in 2010.

But the administration has not been able to enforce the basic human rights of these families, the petitions alleged.

“Our contention before the court was that the right to shelter of the 52 families had been infringed because of the unlawful and illegal activities of Abhay Sahu, the president of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, who does not belong to any of the nine proposed Posco project area villages,” Acharya said.

“Our further contention was that though Abhay Sahu has been able to reside in Gobindpur at the residence of one Ranjan Kumar Mohanty, the villagers of Dhinkia have been forcibly driven out, thereby taking away their right to life, personal liberty and shelter,” the petition counsel added.

Earlier, six villagers of Gobindpur-Dhinkia-Nuagaon had filed two separate writ petitions seeking quashing of the forest clearance granted for the Posco steel plant project and land acquisition proceedings undertaken for it.

Bangalore-based Environment Support Group had also filed an intervention petition in connection with it alleging that forest clearance granted to Posco project by ministry of environment and forest in May was based on blatant lies of the Orissa government that Forest Rights’ Act did not apply to communities affected by the project.