The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) and other respondents to respond to an application filed by the Kerala government seeking permission to take possession of 27 acres of HMT-held land in Kalamassery for establishing a proposed ‘Judicial City’.
A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice on the state’s plea, which has been moved in a long-pending civil appeal arising from a 2014 Kerala High Court judgment dealing with ownership and ceiling restrictions pertaining to the land.
The state proposes to develop a “Judicial City” on the site, envisaged to house the judicial wing of the Kerala High Court and allied infrastructure.
The dispute stems from a civil appeal filed by HMT challenging the 2014 high court verdict. In 2016, the Supreme Court had issued notice in the appeal and directed that status quo with respect to the land be maintained. That interim protection continues to operate.
The Kerala government has now asked the bench to modify the status quo direction to the limited extent of permitting it to take over 27 acres. It has undertaken to deposit compensation, computed on the basis of the 2014 Basic Valuation Report, in the form of a fixed-deposit receipt in the name of the Registrar General of the Kerala High Court in a nationalised bank.
The 900-acre land bank at Kalamassery was acquired in the 1960s for establishing a machine-tool factory as a Central Sector project. Over the decades, portions were transferred to various entities, including the Naval Armament Depot and the Kerala State Electricity Board, but large areas remained unutilised by HMT.
The state sought to resume nearly 400 acres, leading to prolonged litigation that culminated in the 2014 judgment. The Kerala High Court had held that land allotted to HMT could not be subjected to ceiling proceedings under the Kerala Land Reforms Act, since it was originally government land allotted after the statutory cutoff dates.
The matter will be taken up next after the respondents submit their replies.
