Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has directed the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority ( YEIDA ) to remove fencing around the land belonging to farmers till the said land is either acquired for the proposed Film City or it is purchased from farmers. The court passed the order on Sep 5 while hearing a petition by Dharmendra Kumar and eight others, all of them farmers, in which they said that neither their land has been acquired nor have they executed sale deed in favour of YEIDA, but the authorities have put up fencing around their land for the Film City project. A division bench of Justices Manoj Kumar Gupta and Manoj Kumar Nigam said that in case any fencing has been put by YEIDA over the land of the petitioners, it would be removed.
According to the writ petition, in June 2024, the state govt, through YEIDA, launched the ambitious scheme of setting up an International Film City on 1000 acres of land. YEIDA made a proposal and issued a public notice on Aug 25 inviting the tenure holder of the village to sell their land in Sector 21. Thereafter, the petitioners filed their objections before YEIDA against the public notice declining to execute any sale-deed regarding their land.
However, YEIDA put up a signboard in the petitioners' village and started fencing due to which the land of the petitioners became out of their reach. The petitioners requested the court to direct YEIDA to remove fencing from their land in Rabupura village of Gautam Buddh Nagar district.