Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The well-known Supreme Court attorney and activist Prashant Bhushan threatened to launch a contempt of court lawsuit against the Odisha government if the Supreme Court’s rejected Vedanta University project’s allotted land in the Puri district is not restored to farmers. Speaking to a crowd of farmers in Beladala village, Puri district, on Saturday to commemorate Vedanta University Sangharsh Samiti’s Supreme Court win, Bhushan suggested that the state government begin restoring impacted farmers’ land because the intended outcome had not been achieved.
The land acquisition proceedings started by the state government to acquire about 6000 acres of land for the varsity proposed to be headed by mining magnate and chairman of Vedanta Resource Ltd. Anil Agarwal were quashed by the Orissa High Court in 2010, and the apex court upheld that decision in April of this year. Sources claim that Vedanta requested 15,000 acres of land in 2006 in order to construct a university in Puri. The government then approved the acquisition of 12,000 acres of property, with 3,837 acres becoming the owner. Nearly 6000 acres of agricultural property next to the Balukhand Wildlife Sanctuary that belongs to roughly 6000 households were the subject of the dispute.
The SC criticized the proposal and declared that the entire operation was “vitiated by favoritism” after rejecting the appeal against the Orissa High Court’s decision to abandon the purchase. It claimed that taking possession of the site violated both environmental and land acquisition laws since building there would permanently harm the ecology.
