HC stays Himachal’s transfer of varsity land to tourism dept

The Himachal Pradesh high court has restrained the state government and its agents from altering the use of 112 hectares of land transferred from Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Agriculture University in Palampur to the state’s tourism department.
The directions came during the hearing of the petition filed by the Himachal Pradesh Agriculture Teachers Association, opposing the transfer of university land to the tourism department.
“No permanent construction or change in land use should be carried out either by the department of tourism or the university during the pendency of the matter,” ruled the division bench of justice Vivek Singh Thakur and justice Rakesh Kainthla.
The petitioner had moved the HC to restrain the state from transferring the land to the department of tourism and civil aviation for the development of a tourism project in Palampur.
The court in its order directed, “…respondents through their officers/officials, agents or servants, etc. are restrained from changing the nature of the land, in any manner, including raising any type of construction thereon or putting the same for any other use than the purpose for which it has been used before its transfer to the department of tourism and civil aviation, till further orders”.
“The university shall be at liberty to continue to use the aforesaid land as it was being used by it before transfer, but no permanent construction shall be raised by the University also on the land in reference,” it added.
The land in question had already been transferred in favour of department so the petitioners had moved application “to avoid possibility of irreparable loss to the public interest, because in case the respondents are permitted to carry out any activity, including construction thereon during pendency of the main petition or otherwise, to change the nature of the land rendering the same unusable for the purpose of University, it will destroy the basic fabric of the University causing irreparable loss”.
The petitioner had submitted that “for short term gain, long term irreparable loss is being preferred and caused.”
“The concerned authority of the university is being used as a puppet by the government. Against land measuring 112 hectares, land measuring 20- 22 hectares has been proposed to be provided to the university,” they had argued.
The petitioners had stated that the 20-22 hectares land proposed to be transferred was not available and process for identification was underway, which indicates that there was no other suitable land available for the university, particularly for expansion of its ancillary and incidental activities.