Mumbai, Sept. 8 -- The Bombay High Court last week dismissed five petitions seeking additional compensation for land reserved for open spaces and roads which was acquired for the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway in 2019-20. "This court finds substance in the contention of the respondents (state government) that the present petitions have not been filed to air a genuine grievance of land owners/farmers and that the petitions have been orchestrated by individuals and entities involved in the business of land deals," a division bench of justices Manish Pitale and Shreeram Shirsat observed. The petitioners had sought additional compensation claiming that they were compensated only for their agricultural land in two villages in Thane district, while land reserved for open spaces and internal roads was acquired by the state government "virtually free of cost". But the division bench found substance in the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation's (MSRDC) contention that in some instances, power of attorney (PoA) holders had vouched for facts that could only be known to the original land owners or farmers. "The whole frame of the petitions is rendered suspicious due to such defective pleadings," the judges said. Agreements for land acquisition and compensation were executed between the land owners and the state government in August 2019 and August 2020, and the MSRDC had compensated the owners for their agricultural land under the Maharashtra Highways (MH) Act, 1955 and the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. The court said, "The petitioners cannot be permitted to wriggle out of the basis of determination and payment of compensation, as per the said agreements,...