Stories
NICE Land Case: Supreme Court Refuses To Stay High Court Order
- •The Karnataka High Court had earlier quashed the land acquisition process undertaken for the BMIC or NICE road project due to non-payment of compensation to farmers for over 20 years.
- •Challenging the High Court division bench order, the NICE company approached the Supreme Court with an appeal petition.
- •After hearing arguments from both sides, the Supreme Court bench refused to grant an interim stay on the High Court's verdict.
- •The Supreme Court stated that all connected petitions, including the one filed by the State Government, will be clubbed together and heard.
- •The apex court has adjourned the next hearing in the case to November 2.
Key Questions Answered
The Karnataka High Court division bench quashed the land acquisition process undertaken by the KIADB for the Bengaluru-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor because appropriate compensation had failed to be paid to farmers for over 20 years, with the court also noting irregularities and the need for a high-level probe or forensic audit.
The Supreme Court refused to grant an interim stay on the High Court order, stating that a stay is not possible without proper hearing, and decided to club all related petitions together for a hearing scheduled on November 2.
Counsel for NICE argued that the project has been underway for 30 years and 11,000 acres of land have been utilized, whereas the farmers' counsel and Senior Advocate Shashidhar maintained that only 25 percent of the work has been done and roughly 1,100 acres have been used.
