Days after two tribals from Pune district filed a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging a government notification which empowers Lavasa Corp to act as a special planning authority, the company termed the move as “motivated and malafide”.
The realty firm, constructing a hill city (called Lavasa) near Pune, said the tribals, residents of Mulshi taluka, have no locus to file the petition since they are not owners of land in the area where the project is coming up.
In response to the January 10 petition, Lavasa Corp, in an affidavit filed in the HC, said the application has been filed “to blackmail and extort money” from the realtor, a subsidiary of Hindustan Construction Company.
The tribals, Bhandya Bhau Walhekar and his brother Babu, had approached the HC seeking quashing of the June 2008 notification of Maharashtra Urban Development Department which gives Lavasa Corp powers to acquire land and act as special planning authority. The petition argued that such powers cannot be delegated to a private company.
“The petitioners are not concerned with or individually affected by the notification. The petition has been filed at the instance of other purportedly public interest litigants and social workers who have been agitating against Lavasa project,” claimed the affidavit filed by Sunil Khadka, Assistant Vice—President, Lavasa.
The Walhekars moved the HC after the Sub—Divisional Officer issued a notice as to why action for dispossession of their ten—hectare land should not be initiated.
The petition said after receiving the notice, they learnt their land had been transferred to Lavasa Corp, and based on the 2008 notification, the company was trying to take possession. It wanted the court to restrain Lavasa from dispossessing them, contending that land is their only source of income.