By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan Monday said that he was given legal advice that presidential assent was not needed for the Singur land law brought in by the Mamata Banerjee government.
Soon after the governor’s remarks, the state’s opposition parties slammed the Trinamool Congress-led government for misleading the governor to serve its “vested interests”.
In a major setback to the government, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court Friday struck down the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, as unconstitutional and void.
The court said the legislation was enacted without obtaining the assent of the president. It also ruled that sections of compensation in the law were in conflict with the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
Answering queries from media persons on the court verdict, Narayanan said on the sidelines of a function: “I thought we did not require the president’s approval…that was the legal advice also. Fine, if the high court felt otherwise…”
The opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Congress, a junior partner in the government, used the governor’s comments to attack the Banerjee-led dispensation.
“It is really unfortunate that the governor even after so many instances of embarrassment is yet to understand that the state government wants to serve its own vested political interest by misleading the governor. If the governor continues to believe this government he will again face embarrassments,” said CPI-M central committee member Shyamal Chakraborty.
“It shows the ignorance towards constitutional and legal norms on the part of the Trinamool. If they were well aware of the laws, they wouldn’t have misled the governor,” said state Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya.
Congress leader Arunavo Ghosh pointed out that the state government misled the governor as part of its bid to ignore the central government.
By that act, the Trinamool Congress government sought to take back from the Tata Group the land that was leased to it by the previous Left Front government for the Nano small car project and also return the land to the farmers who initially owned it.
The court, however, gave the West Bengal government two months to appeal before the Supreme Court.
The state Bharatiya Janata Party unit demanded that who ever was responsible for misleading the governor should be punished.