Railways cannot grant usage rights for a private siding without the owner's consent, ensuring adherence to natural justice principles.

ORDER :

1. By way of this petition, the petitioner has sought the following relief(s):-

“10.1 This Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to call for the entire records concerning the case of the petitioner from the possession of the respondents for its kind perusal.

10.2 This Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue appropriate writ quashing and setting aside the impugned IPA dated 08.04.2021 (Annexure P/1) and any other permission and /or approval to further process application made by respondent No.5 being dated 09.02.2021, granted by the respondent No.4 to the respondent No.5 for the purported Greenfield PFT under the 2020 PFT Policy including any permission or approval granted by the respondent No.3 to the respondent No.5 for use of the petitioner’s Hathband Private Siding, as being arbitrary and illegal;

10.3 This Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to issue any other relief as deemed fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case.”

2. The petitioner/company has challenged In-Principle Approval (for short ‘the IPA’) dated 08.04.2021 granted by respondent No. 4/Senior Divisional Operational Manager, South East Central Railway, Divisional Office, Raipur for the proposed construction of a purported Greenfield Private Freight Terminal (for short, Greenfield PFT).

3.The facts of the present case, in a nutshell, are as under:-

A. The petitioner is the largest manufacturer of grey cement, ready-mix concrete and white cement.

B. The Petitioner established Hathband Private Siding (single line) in the Hathband Railway Station in the year 2000 to connect its two integrated cement manufacturing plants i.e. Hirmi Cement Works and Rawan Cement Works for inward and outward movement of raw material and finished products.

C. The petitioner operated its Hathband Private Siding in terms of the Private Siding Policy. The agreements dated 01.02.2008 and 10.08.2010 were entered into between the petitioner and respondent No. 3. The petitioner has invested the amount of Rs. 1800-2000 crores (approx.) towards the expansion of a few of the associated cement grinding units.

D. The petitioner carried out Brownfield expansion in the cement manufacturing plants located in the State of Chhattisgarh and the same will result in increased traffic (peak) on the petitioner’s Hathband Private Siding from 20 to 28.5 rakes per day.

E. The Private Siding Policy is defined in Freight Marketing Circular No. 11 of 2016, which refers to privately owned siding constructed/laid out by a Party at its own cost for railway freight services at the premises of its plant or manufacturing unit or production unit or mines etc. under a special arrangement.

F. The Private Freight Terminal Policy (for short, PFT) was introduced by respondent No. 1 on 23.06.2020 in order to attract more investment in PFTs from the private sector. The objective of the said policy is to encourage the participation of logistic services providers to create world-class logistics facilities i.e., (i) to enable rapid development of freight handling terminals with the participation of the private sector; (ii) to increase the presence and share of railways in the overall transport chain; & (iii) to shift the traffic from road to rail by providing efficient and cost-effective logistics and warehouse soluti