Orissa HC stays Vedanta University land acquisition

The proposed Vedanta University, India's answer to Stanford and Harvard, suffered a blow after Orissa High Court ruled the land acquisition for the project in Orissa's Puri town as illegal and void.

The Rs 150 billion multi-disciplinary university is being built by Anil Agarwal Foundation, a registered not-for-profit entity controlled by family members of metal billionaire Anil Agarwal. It was proposed to spread over an area of 6892 acres on Puri-Konark marine drive overlooking the Bay of Bengal. The university, when fully operational, was to have an intake of 100,000 students with cutting-edge research facility in 95 academic disciplines. The Anil Agarwal Foundation had acquired about 4500 acres of the 6892 acres allotted to it.
But the controversial university project, work on which was stalled by the Ministry of Environment and Forest in May this year over CRZ violation, has hit a major roadblock after a two-judge bench of chief justice V Gopal Gowda and justice BP Das of Orissa High Court ruled that the land acquisition violated several existing laws and could be a threat to a existing wildlife sanctuary.