Odisha HC stays construction of Biju Patnaik Airport boundary wall

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Cuttack, Feb 27:

The Odisha High Court on Thursday stayed the construction of boundary wall of Biju Patnaik International Airport at Bhimpur area in Bhubaneswar and has asked the airport authorities to submit a report as per the ‘Sabaka Map’ after measuring the land in question.

A single bench of Justice Biswanath Rath issued the directive after hearing a petition filed by Madhu Goud, Krutibas Mohanty and Gyanendra Tripathy of Bhimpur area.

The bench posted the next hearing of the case to March 4.

The General Administration department, which had handed over 1506 decimal of land of Bhimpur village on the outskirts of the city to the Airport Authority on June 18, 2006, was supposed to give the residents of the village the same amount of land to construct a 30 feet road.

But as the road was not constructed, people of the locality had drawn the attention of the government and protested in different forums.

Later, former director of Estate of GA department had asked the tehsildar to measure the land as per ‘Sabaka Map’ and ‘Hal Map’ on September 12, 2014 and submit a report.

However, the dispute began after the airport authority tried to construct a 30 feet road, out of which 20 feet were its own land and 10 feet were land belongs to the villagers.

Following the protest of the villagers, the Director of Estate ordered a measurement of the land in presence of five platoons of armed police force on January 20 where the airport authorities constructed a boundary wall.

Protesting the forcible construction of the boundary wall, the villagers later filed a writ petition in the Odisha High Court.