Following a Gujarat High Court order, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led state government recently (on July 5) agreed to retrieve 108 hectares of cattle grazing land in the Kachch region, which had been allocated to Adani Ports in 2005.

The land, located in the village of Navinal, was allotted for the Mundra Port Special Economic Zone project of the Adani Group in 2005, during Narendra Modi's tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

However, the villagers became aware of this allocation only in 2010 when the company began fencing the area. In 2011, the villagers filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), challenging the allocation of land that had been primarily used by them for grazing their cattle.

The petition contended that such allocation has shrunk the land which was used by them for ‘Gauchar (cattle grazing)’, a report published in Bar and Bench revealed.

The report said, “The court found that there were around 732 animals present, for which an area of 320 acres (around 130 hectares) would be required for their grazing. However, after allocation to the Adani Group, the remaining land available to the villagers was only about 17 hectares.”

The Modi government at the time initially proposed to grant around 387 hectares of government land and approximately 85 hectares of land belonging to the village panchayat for cattle grazing. However, it later filed a recall application citing discrepancies in its initial offer. This action led to the restoration of proceedings in this matter.

The petitioners moved the court again. On April 19, during the hearing of the case, the court asked the state government to take necessary steps to resolve the matter.

“The replenishment of the gauchar land in village Navinal is the duty of the state,” the court stated.

Later, on June 21, a two-judge bench led by Chief Justice of the High Court, Sunita Agarwal, gave the state's revenue department and the collector of Kachin "a last opportunity" to file an affidavit that would comply with its April 19 order.

On Friday, the state government proposed to return the 108 hectares of cattle grazing land to the villagers, following which the court issued the order, stating, “to make good the deficit of gauchar land of village Navinal, it is resolved to resume an area of 108-22-35 hectares from respondent no 7 (Adani Ports) and the proposal in this regard had been moved before the state government on July 1,2024.”