The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Orissa government to maintain status quo on acquisition of 6,000 hectares of land for setting up an international university by UK-based Vedanta group in the holy city of Puri.Admitting a bunch of cross-appeals, a bench of justices D K Jain and H L Dattu asked the state government to maintain status quo on the process to acquire the land.
Earlier, two different benches of the apex court had refused to hear the cross-appeals saying that one or the other judges had been linked to the adjudication of the issue before.
The state government and the Anil Agarwal Foundation, which promotes the project, appealed against a decision of the Orissa high court, which citing 17 reasons, held that land acquisition procedures for the proposed Vedanta University project were illegal.
The high court had also directed Vedanta to return the land to its various owners.
Appearing for one of over half a dozen petitioners against the project, counsel Prashant Bhushan contended that the state government began acquiring land for setting up of a
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