The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to ensure that its departments do not take contradictory stands on disputes, reported Live Law.

A division bench of Justices BR Gavai and CT Ravikumar made the observation while hearing a matter related to a warehouse facility of the Central Warehousing Corporation on 34 acres of land within the special economic zone area developed by Adani Ports Special Economic Zone in Gujarat.

The state-run corporation had challenged a Gujarat High Court order that had asked it to swap the land of its two godowns with another property outside the special economic zone offered by the Adani firm.

The corporation was set up by the Government of India in 1957 to support the agricultural sector by operating warehouses and container freight stations across the country. The warehouse facilities were built near the Mundra port which later became part of the Adani Ports Special Economic Zone.

The corporation went to Supreme Court in November 2021 saying that Adani had misrepresented facts to authorities so that it can take the 34-acre land adjacent to Mundra port, the Financial Express reported. Also, the plot that Adani had offered to the corporation as an alternative was unsuitable and could cause losses to the business, the body said.

The court had sought a response from the Union government and Adani’s company.

However, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had held that the denotificaition of land as sought by the state-run corporation is not permissible in law. On the other hand, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution had said such a provision is allowed.

During Thursday’s hearing, the division bench noted the opposite stands taken by two ministries. “We, therefore, impress upon the Union of India to evolve a mechanism to ensure that whenever such conflicting stands are taken by different departments, they should be resolved at the governmental level itself,” read the Supreme Court judgement.

The judges also quashed the Gujarat High Court’s order.