SC sets aside Allahabad HC order on GDA land acquisition India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Allahabad High Court's order that stayed the construction of houses by the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA). The houses were constructed for the people living in economically weaker sections in Uttar Pradesh. A Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, while setting aside the High Court order, asked it to dispose of all the petitions pending before it at an early date. " As there are several petitions pending before the High Court, the same Bench may hear all these petitions," the apex court opined. Earlier, the apex court bench had issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh Government, Sahara India Commercial Corporation, 11 other developers in the case. The Ghaziabad Development Authority's (GDA) had submitted that land had already been taken over by it and the construction was going on in the properties. Sahara India Commercial Corporation challenged acquisition of its 93 acres of land by the GDA in some villages of the Ghaziabad District. In its order the High Court had asked GDA to maintain status quo on construction on the ground that the Uttar Pradesh Government had only given symbolic and not actual possession of more than 1,234 acre of land to GDA. The Sahara claims that all the parties who were benefited by the 2006 order were not before the apex court and any order cannot be passed in their absence. The GDA said that the land acquired by it couldn't be reserved for the 11 developers, as they were not registered.