Deciding 22 lands, for which SHIL holds the power of attorney, in a suo motto action, the divisional commissioner has directed the Pune district collectorate to decide on ``merit'' the legality of 14 land deals. These involve the surplus or ceiling lands belonging to the revenue department.

The commissioner has said that the parties concerned should pay 50 per cent amount of each of the land deals as nazrana (premium) with the fresh applications, well-placed sources told The Indian Express today.

Five lands in Peth Shahapur village, together admeasuring 58.66 hectares, were forfeited by the Government between 1920 and 1940 for non-payment of revenue. These were returned to the legal heirs of the land owners in 1992 by the then sub-divisional officer of Mulshi and were subsequently sold. The power of attorney for these lands was later vested with the SIHL, it was stated.

The status of these lands would remain as ``forfeited by the Government'' and SHIL could not undertake any development there, the report said.

The commissioner forwarded his report on all the 22 cases to the State Government late last week, it was stated. The commissioner was annoyed about a report on land deals involving SIHL by a recently transferred additional district collector of Pune, sources said.

Three land deals were dropped from the purview of the enquiry after the land-owners submitted records establishing their agricultural backgrounds, it was stated.

Ever since the grant of letter of intent, the multi-million project has been besetted by one controversy after another.

Following two writ petitions objecting the SHIL project the Bombay High Court not only had quashed the letter of intent granted to SIHL, but had also asked the State Government to conduct a probe into SIHL's land transactions. One of the petitions was filed by the Bombay Environmental Action Group and another jointly by Shankar Brahme Samajvijnyan Granthalaya, Parisar and Econet, the Pune-based organisations.

The litigations revolved around 1500-odd hectares of land spread across seven villages of Mulshi After the Bombay High Court quashing the letter of intent to it, the SIHL has applied for a fresh application for letter of intent to the saffron alliance government. The company also had given an undertaking that it would not undertake any construction activity on the disputed forest land.

It may also be recalled that the Supreme Court while dismissing a special leave petition filed by SHIL recently, had clarified that the SHIL's fresh application for the letter of intent may be considered by the State Government uninfluenced by the dismissal of special leave petition in the court or by any observations made by the high court.