Notice to Guj over Rs 1400 cr stamp duty

The High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to Stamp Duty Superintendent of Gujarat asking why the state government has not recovered stamp duty for the land allotted for the Mundra Special Economic Zone (SEZ) between 2005 and 2017.

The first division bench of chief justice R Subhash Reddy and justice Vipul Pancholi issued the notice while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) by Sanjay Bapat, who has alleged that the state exchequer incurred a minimum loss of Rs1,400 crore because of government’s inaction.

The reply has to filed before November 8.  The petitioner’s advocates, Jamini Patel and Sanjivkumar Patel, submitted he represented the issue before the Kutch district collector in 2016.

The collector had issued a notice to Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., asking it to pay the stamp duty. However, it was not followed up, the petition stated.

From 2005 to 2017, hundreds of acres of land was allotted to the SEZ at 33 locations in Mundra. The PIL has sought a directive to the Stamp Duty Superintendent to calculate stamp duty based on Jantri and should recover it from Adani Group at the earliest.

The PIL alleged that the state government has failed in recovering stamp duty, despite a government resolution of 2005, making stamp duty mandatory for land allotted for Mundra SEZ. Though the petition was moved in March, the court directive has come after nine hearings.

The company’s has maintained that as per the government’s 2004 resolution, land allotted to SEZ is exempted from stamp duty.