PTI reported that the Bombay High Court has dismissed a petition filed by Zenith Metaplast Pvt Ltd praying for allotment of a three acre plot in Nashik to itself and cancellation of adjacent plots allotted to Mahindra&Mahindra Ltd and an industrialist.
The court said that the Maharashtra Government and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation had acted in the interests of the State while allotting the adjacent plots admeasuring 17 acres and 6 acres to Mahindra&Mahindra and Nashik based industrialist Abhay Kulkarni respectively.
Zenith Metaplast also sought a writ of certiorari to quash the communications dated December 16th 2005,and June 22nd 2006,rejecting its application for the allotment of a plot admeasuring about 3 acres in the same MIDC area.
The order is considered significant against the backdrop of an MoU signed by the Maharashtra Government and Mahindra and Mahindra on June 15th 2005,in respect of commissioning of INR 700 crore project at Nashik for manufacture of Logan car.
Justices Mr RY Ganoo and Mr SJ Vajifdar in their recent order said that“Having been through the records,we are satisfied that there is no arbitrariness in the decision.The decision to allot the said plots to Mahindra&Mahindra and Abhay Kulkarni was taken after due consideration of all the facts and circumstances of the case.”
The judges said that“MIDC and the state of Maharashtra considered the application of Mahindra&Mahindra and Abhay Kulkarni to be,inter alia,in public interest for the benefit of the state.We find no reason to condemn this decision as arbitrary for any reason whatsoever.”
The MIDC contended that the petitioner,over the years,had been allotted eight plots of land in the said area,but the full potential of even these plots was not exploited by the petitioner and therefore it has no case.
The Bench said that“The details of these eight plots and the extent to which they have been exploited have been furnished.The petitioner has not denied these statements or offered any cogent explanation for accumulating plots and not using them.”
The judges further added that the petitioner was aware of the allotment in favour of Mahindra&Mahindra prior to March 15th 2006,as is evident from the letter dated March 15th 2006,addressed by it to MIDC.The petitioner never objected to the allotment of the plot by MIDC in favour of Mahindra&Mahindra.This is evident from the correspondence addressed by the petitioner which we have already referred to.
