Singur: Tata's appeal assigned to new division bench of Calcutta HC

The Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court today assigned the appeal of Tata Motors Ltd challenging a trial court order upholding constitutionality of Singur Land Act to a new division bench after the state questioned whether an earlier bench had jurisdiction to hear the case.Chief Justice JN Patel assigned the TML appeal challenging the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, to a division bench comprising Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice Mrinal Kanti Chaudhuri.TML had earlier moved the appeal and another application seeking extension of the stay on the single bench order before the division bench comprising Justice KJ Sengupta and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.TML is likely to move the bench tomorrow as Justice IP Mukerji, while passing the order on September 28, gave an unconditional stay till November 2.The division bench presided by Justice Sengupta referred to the Chief Justice the appeal by TML challenging the earlier order validating the Singur Act after the state questioned whether it had jurisdiction to hear the case.Appearing for West Bengal government's industries department, senior counsel Kalyan Banerjee told the division bench comprising Justice Sengupta and Justice Bagchi that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case. Banerjee claimed that the appeal challenging the validity of the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act 2011 should be heard by another bench presided by Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh as such matters relating to challenge of validity of an act were under his jurisdiction.Appearing for Tata Motors Ltd, barrister S Pal submitted that the bench headed by Justice Sengupta had concurrent jurisdiction and could hear the appeal like all others and as such there was no question of lack of jurisdiction.Hearing both the parties, the bench decided to refer the matter to Chief Justice JN Patel to clarify whether it had jurisdiction or not to hear the matter.TML has challenged the order of Justice I P Mukerji, who upheld the constitutionality of Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, by which West Bengal government vested the land leased to the company at Singur, before the division bench.The court had, after passing the order on September 28, given an unconditional stay of the judgement till November two to allow any aggrieved party to file an appeal, if it so desired.Tata Motors, which was to set up its Nano car plant at Singur, had moved to Sanand in Gujarat in 2008 citing law and order problem.