Madhya Pradesh High Court Constitutes Three Member Committee To Resolve Parking Issues At Indore District Court

A three-member panel under the chairmanship of Principal Sessions & District Judge, Indore has been constituted by the Madhya Pradesh High Court to resolve the long-standing dispute pertaining to the lack of parking space at Indore District Court.

The single judge bench of Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla has entrusted the said committee with the responsibility to decide the extent of area required for parking out of 12.03 acres of land taken over by the Government. The said 12.03 acres of land originally belonged to the petitioner company, Hope Textiles Limited; the possession over the said land was taken over by the Nazul officer as per the order passed by the District Collector. This order has been primarily challenged in the writ petition filed in 2012.

As per the High Court order on 17.10.2023, the panel so constituted would also include the Collector or his nominee and President or Secretary of the Indore Bar Association.The said panel has also been entrusted with the task of deciding the conditions for grant of temporary permission for parking.

“….The other conditions shall also be decided by the Committee. The temporary arrangement of parking made by the Committee shall be subject to final result of this petition. In terms of the court order dated 16.9.2013, the permission shall be granted to use a portion of the said land for Jatra function”, the court accordingly noted in the order.

The intervenor in the writ petition, i.e., Indore Bar Association, had earlier submitted that members of the bar, judicial officers and litigants have no sufficient space to park their vehicles in the premises of the District Court. Therefore, the intervenor association sought for the constitution of a committee to examine the extent of land required out of the 12.03 Acres of land taken over by the government.

On the other hand, the counsel for the petitioner had replied to the said application of the intervenor by contending that the Appellate Authority for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (AAIFR) had passed a detailed order pertaining to the land owned by the petitioner company. As per AAIFR, 3.15 Acres of the petitioner’s land was regarded as free hold and 22.24 Acres were regarded as lease hold land which was marked as Unit No.1 and Unit No.2 respectively. According to the petitioner, the said land is being developed as per the sanctioned scheme for rehabilitation and restart of the petitioner company in two phases.

The land marked as Unit No.1 has already been sold by the petitioner to free the company of the existing debts. Moreover, a part of the leasehold land has also been subleased by the petitioner company. Regarding phase 2 of the sanctioned scheme, the High Court noted as below about the submissions of the petitioner company:

“…. Phase 2 of the sanctioned scheme is under implementation to generate funds for restart of the mills and the process for restart of the mills has already been started and the proposal of intervenor may obstruct this process for restart of the mills. However, he does not dispute that the land taken over by the Collector is lying vacant because of the order of Collector and interim order of status quo.”

Counsel for the state submitted that the land in question has already been vested with the government as per the order of exemption granted by the State Government under Section 20 of Urban Ceiling Act. By virtue of this, the Collector passed the order directing the Nazul officer to take possession of 8.24 Acres of petitioner’s lease hold land.

Earlier, when the writ petition was filed, the court had ordered status quo on 12.10.2012, followed by another order that granted the permission to conduct Marathi food festival (Jatra) for specified days in the year 2013.

Case Title: Hope Textiles Ltd. And Anr. And Others v. Principal Secretary State Of M.P. And Anr. And Others

Case No: WP No. 9766 of 2012

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