HC told to review grant of orchards

For the second time, the Supreme Court has asked the Uttarakhand High Court to examine the grant of orchards to The Energy and Research Institute (earlier TERI) and one Akhilesh Kala as its order did not consider their arguments. The state has more than 100 unproductive orchards and it wanted to introduce a policy of public-private partnership to make these profitable. Seven orchards were given to six parties out of which three surrendered the orchards to the government. The institute, Dabur Research Foundation and Kala retained the grants. However, a person named Suhrid Shah moved a public interest petition against the grants, alleging that the allotments were made on a nomination basis, without auction. The high court struck down the grant to all the three. Dabur did not appeal, and Kala had died. Though the Supreme Court had asked the high court to reconsider the issues, it made a cryptic order cancelling the grants, which led to the appeal. The judgment commented that the high court did not even realise that Kala had died long ago.