Bullet Train Project: Supreme Court dismisses appeal by Godrej & Boyce against Bombay High Court order upholding land acquisition

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed an appeal by Godrej & Boyce challenging acquisition of its land for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train Project [Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co Ltd vs State of Maharashtra]..A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala upheld the Bombay High Court order, which had said that the project is of national importance and had found no illegality in the land acquisition proceedings.However, it was clarified that,"... upon filing of a reference by the petitioner for enhancement of compensation, the jurisdictional court shall dispose of the reference within a period of six months."."In our view, the powers of the Court under writ jurisdiction are discretionary and merely because there are certain alleged irregularities in the procedure required to be followed while acquiring the writ property, the court cannot exercise discretionary power in view of the fact that the bullet train project being infrastructural and public project of national importance," the High Court had said..The High Court had further held that larger public interest would prevail over private interest, and the project is first of its kind."It is the paramount collective interest which would ultimately prevail. In the facts of this case, the private interest claimed by the petitioner does notprevail over the public interest which would subserve Infrastructural Project of public importance which is a dream project of this country and first of its kind", the order said.This order lead to an appeal before the top court..The plea by Godrej and Boyce before the High Court had challenged an award of compensation passed on September 15, 2022 by the Deputy Collector for acquiring the company's land after awarding compensation of ₹264 crores.The application by the company had claimed that the entire proceedings initiated in 2019 for land acquisition had lapsed in 2020 and, hence, the award passed by the officer was void ab initio.The company had challenged the amendment to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, after which the bullet train project had been made exempt from any social impact assessment to be carried out by experts..[Read order]