In a major setback for the West Bengal government, the Supreme Court upheld an arbitration award directing it to pay ₹766 crore to Tata Motors over the Singur land dispute.
New Delhi : The West Bengal government faced a setback in the Supreme Court on Friday in the Singur case, with the court upholding an arbitral award requiring the state to pay substantial compensation to the Tata Group. A bench comprising Justices P. Narsimha and Atul S. Chandurkar dismissed the state’s plea challenging the award, affirming that ₹766 crore must be paid to Tata as compensation.
The dispute dates back to 2006, when the then Left Front government acquired nearly 1,000 acres of fertile agricultural land in Singur for a Tata Motors factory to manufacture the small car Nano. The acquisition was strongly opposed by the Trinamool Congress, then the opposition in the state, which launched a farmers’ movement against the project. The protests eventually forced Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government to abandon the plan, leading Tata Motors to exit Singur.The Singur agitation became a political turning point, helping the Trinamool Congress secure a landslide victory in 2011 and end the Left Front’s 34-year rule. Following a Supreme Court directive, the acquired land was returned to the farmers. Tata Motors subsequently filed a compensation claim.
In 2023, the dispute between Tata Motors and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Limited (WBIDC) was referred to arbitration. The three-member arbitral tribunal’s decision in favour of Tata prompted the state to challenge it, alleging bias by one of the arbitrators. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the state, argued that the arbitrator in question had visited Nagpur 15 times at Tata’s invitation, though he declined a similar invitation after the arbitration concluded.
Tata’s counsel, Mukul Rohatgi, strongly objected, questioning how such an allegation could be made against a judge and calling for the petition to be dismissed with costs. When Sibal submitted documents in support of the claim, the bench cautioned that if the allegations were found to be unfounded, the state could face a heavy penalty. Sibal then sought to withdraw the documents, prompting stern remarks from the bench.
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the state’s plea, leaving the arbitration award intact and confirming that West Bengal must pay ₹766 crore to Tata Motors.
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