Central government departments can't take conflicting stands in same case: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday impressed upon the Union government on the need to evolve a mechanism to ensure that conflicting stands of different government departments in Courts are resolved at the government level itself [Central Warehousing Corporation vs Adani Ports SEZ and ors]..A bench of Justices BR Gavai and CT Ravikumar requested the Attorney General for India R Venkataramani to do the needful in this regard. The top court stated so after taking note of the contradictory stance taken by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce and Industries."We are of the considered view that it does not augur well for the Union of India to speak in two contradictory voices. The two departments of the Union of India cannot be permitted to take stands which are diagonally opposite ... We, therefore, impress upon the Union of India to evolve a mechanism to ensure that whenever such conflicting stands are taken by different departments, they should be resolved at the governmental level itself," the Court said.The judgment was passed allowing an appeal by the Central Warehousing Corporation (appellant) against a Gujarat High Court order that effectively enabled land leased to the appellant to be claimed by Adani Ports..The appellant had moved the present appeal challenging a June 2021 Gujarat High Court order that enabled the respondents to go about acquiring about 34 acres of land near Mundra Port (owned by Adani Ports) leased to the appellant. The counsel for the appellant submitted that the High Court had failed to notice that the said land could not have been included in the respondent's allotted Special Economic Zone area.The Counsel said that the High Court's comment that the present appellant had an ego in the matter was unwarranted. Counsel for the respondents noted that Adani Ports was not a public body and as such, a writ is not maintainable against it. Further, they had in 2007 despite not being duty-bound to do so proposed alternative land to the appellants. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs Ministry supported the stand of the corporation with respect to its claim on the land, writing in official communication that the Corporation had possession of the 34 acres in question well before the area was notified as part of the Adani Ports' Special Economic Zone (SEZ).The Commerce and Industries Ministry on the other hand had said the SEZ land could not have be de-notified/delienated as was done to be leased to the Corporation..The Bench noted that the respondent had earlier retracted its proposal to give the appellant alternative land, as it could not agree with the last of three conditions set.The High Court had viewed the time taken in this regard on part of the respondents to be 'immediate', even as it was three months, the judges noted. In effect, the High Court had forced a statutory body to eventually accept a settlement towards the third condition (relating to cost escalations to be compensated for), the top court observed. The top court noted that the Central Vigilance Commission in 2010 had flagged the financial implications of swapping of the warehousing facility from the present site to a new one, and thus found the High Court ruling 'surprising'."When an issue involved the balancing of interests of a statutory Corporation and a private company, the approach of the High Court ought to have been a balanced one. The High Court ought to have taken into consideration that, unless all the three conditions were complied with, the interest of the appellant-CWC, which is a statutory Corporation, could not have been safeguarded. If a settlement was to be arrived at, unless the same was found to be in the interest of both the parties, it could not have been thrust upon a statutory Corporation to its detriment and to the advantage of a private entity."The High Court order was, thus, set aside and the pending petitions seeking relief were remanded to a single-judge for fresh decision within six months..Senior Advocate Maninder Singh with advocates Prabhas Bajaj and Amarjeet Singh appeared for the appellant.Senior Advocate Shyam Divan appeared for the respondents.[Read Judgment]