Cuttack, July 22: With Orissa High Court reserving judgment on the legality of forest clearance granted for the proposed Posco steel plant, the focus of the ongoing legal battle over the project has now turned to the legitimacy of the land acquisition proceedings under way for it.

Nishakar Khatua and five other villagers of Govindpur-Dhinkia-Nuagaon under Kujang police station area in Jagatsinghpur district had filed two separate writ petitions for quashing of the forest clearance granted by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and the land acquisition proceedings initiated by the state government.

The court, after closing hearing on forest clearance on Wednesday, has scheduled to consider on the dispute raised over land acquisition on Monday.

The dispute centres round the contention of the petitioners that the state government had issued notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act for undertaking acquisition for a “public purpose” and at “government expense” when the entire acquisition of land is apparently for a private limited company.

“Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (Iidco) is not competent to acquire land exclusively for any particular company,” the petitioners have contended, while challenging land acquisition proceedings related to Dhinkia, Govindpur, Bhuyanpal, Polanga, Nolia Sahi, Bayanala Kandha and Nuagaon.

According to the petition, Iidco is the creation of a statute – the Iidco Act. Neither the preamble nor the contents of the Act justify or authorise it to be a middleman upon payment of 20 per cent commission for acquiring private land for any specific non-government or private company.

“The device has been so arranged to illegally evade the mandatory provisions of Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules and to further cause acquisition for a private limited company in the garb of public purpose and at the expense of the state exchequer,” the petitioners alleged.

“Land acquisition without jurisdiction and vitiated right from its inception and not remediable are liable to be quashed with costs,” the petition argues, while alleging that “sections of the Land Acquisition Act have been waived so as to deny the concerned land owners and other interested parties from raising objection”.

In the other petition, the six villagers had challenged the forest clearance granted for the Posco steel plant for violation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights), Act, 2008. At close of hearing on Wednesday, the dispute had narrowed down to the question as to whether the Forest Rights Act, 2006, is applicable to any of the communities in the project area.

The project is proposed to be established on 1620.49 hectares that include 1253.22 hectares of forestland. There are at least 3,575 families (including the petitioners) who will be allegedly affected in terms of livelihood and face displacement by the diversion of the forestland.

The MoEF had submitted before the court that the approval was based on assurance by the state government that rights endowed under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, does not apply to the communities affected by the project.