According to Baroda Bar Association president Narendra Tiwari, though a writ petition over ownership of the land was pending in the Gujarat High Court there was no stay against acquisition of land by the government.

He said that what was important in the matter, was compensation and it could always be paid to the party in whose favour the ownership was decided.

Tiwari said that the land in question was reserved for the district court in the first development plan of the city prepared by Vadodara Urban Development Authority (VUDA) in 1976 when Chandrakant Mehta was its chairman.

However, the matter remained in cold storage till 1986 when the issue of acquisition of land was raised by BBA. When the town development scheme was prepared by the Vadodara Municipal Corporation in 1990, a town planning scheme no. 66 (TPS-66) was prepared for the court building over this land, Tiwari said.

Tiwari said that a town development officer was also appointed by the State Government for TPS-66 but the work on it could not proceed due to legal tangles.