Ministries should not take contradictory stands: SC

The Supreme Court on Thursday voiced strong displeasure over the contrary stands taken by the Union government’s two ministries and asked it evolve a mechanism to ensure that such conflicting stands were resolved at their level itself.

“It does not augur well for the Union of India to speak in two contradictory voices. The two departments cannot be permitted to take stands which are diagonally opposite,” a bench presided over by Justice BR Gavai said.

The court directed its Registry to furnish a copy of the judgment to the Attorney General “to use his good offices and do the needful.”

The court was dealing with a dispute between the state-run Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) and Adani Ports Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) over a 34-acre plot adjacent to Mundra Port in Gujarat.

The bench, also comprising Justice C T Ravikumar, set aside the Gujarat High Court’s June, 2021 order that asked CWC to get approval or a waiver as a SEZ compliant unit for its warehouse facility comprising two godowns with a total capacity of 66,000 MTs on the 34-acre plot.

Before the top court, the CWC challenged the “unlawful inclusion” of its land in the SEZ area. It alleged Adani had misrepresented the authorities so as to take away its 34 acre land, adjacent to Mundra Port.

The court asked the HC to decide the issue afresh.

In this case, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had held that the delineation/denotification of the area from APSEZL, as sought by the CWC, was not permissible in law as there is no provision in the SEZ Act and Rules which empowers the authority to grant such a waiver from complying with the conditions/obligations applicable to SEZ Units.

However, the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution had differed and taken a contrary stand that such a delineation/denotification was permissible and there were precedents for doing so.

The consumer affairs ministry had also said that shifting the warehouses to alternate locations would be against the interest of CWC as well as public revenue.