Bombay High Court quashes acquisition of 84 acres of government land in Karjat

The transfer of government and forest land to private companies in Karjat taluka of Raigad district has come up once again. About 84 acres of government land at Thokarwadi in the taluka was to be given to a private organisation. A petition was filed against this, and the Bombay High Court has quashed the government's acquisition proceedings. The attempt has thus finally failed.

The background to the case is linked to a Tata project. In the British era, the Tata group built the Andhra dam in Pune and started an 80 MW hydroelectric project at Bhivpuri in Karjat taluka. The Tata group is now preparing a new project to generate 1,200 MW of power in the same area. A large tract of forest land lay around this new project. It has come to light that the government handed this forest land to the Tata group in 2024.

After this, moves began to give 84 acres owned by the Maharashtra government, next to the same Tata dam, to an organisation called the "Maharishi Vedodharak Foundation".

The sequence of events in the entire process has been described as startling. On March 3, 2025, the government declared the 84 acres an "industrial area". The very next day, March 4, 2025, the process of acquiring the land was started directly. It was an attempt to make the land available for a proposed project of the "Maharishi Vedodharak Foundation". People are asking that the foundation has no notable public-interest work in Karjat taluka, so how was government land being given to a private organisation overnight.

The matter has raised serious questions about the government's role. Earlier, the Maharashtra government had given about 96 acres at Lakhachi Wadi in the Bhalivadi gram panchayat area of Karjat taluka for a colony of Torrent Power. With another such case now surfacing, ordinary citizens are asking whether farmland, the rights of tribal people and public property in the area will remain safe.

Bajirao Dalvi, taluka chief of the Shiv Sena (Thackeray faction), said: "The government is expected to protect the people's land and public property. If attempts to grab land for the benefit of private organisations continue like this, the people will not sit silent. The High Court's decision is a victory for the rights of farmers and the environment."