MUMBAI, June 24 -- The Bombay High Court has imposed a cost of Rs.5 lakh on the Maharashtra government for dragging infrastructure company IVRCL Limited into a decade-long "avoidable litigation" over excavated land in the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) campus, holding that the proceedings were taken up based on a non-existent legal provision. A single-judge bench of justice Kamal Khata on June 22 quashed an order passed by the revenue authorities in November 2014, directing IVRCL to make a payment of Rs.54.08 lakh. The dispute arose from a contract awarded by the Department of Atomic Energy to IVRCL in January 2010 for the construction of a computer science and engineering complex at the IIT-B campus. Under the contract, surplus excavated earth was to be dumped within the campus for levelling the low-lying areas. According to IVRCL's petition, despite carrying out the work in accordance with the contract, the sub-divisional officer (SDO) issued it a show-cause notice in October 2010, alleging that the company had unauthorisedly excavated 3,800 brass of minor minerals. The SDO initiated action under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (MLRC) and imposed a penalty of Rs.54.08 lakh on the company, a decision that was upheld by the district collector and the additional commissioner in 2011. IVRCL argued that since the excavated material was dumped in the IIT campus itself, no permission was required from the competent authority for the excavation. The government submitted that the penalty was imposed because the excavated material was moved from one land parcel to another and the contractor had failed to obtain prior permission before carrying out the work. The court held that the 2010 show-cause notice, as well as the orders passed by the collector and the additional commissioner, were "wholly unsustainable and reflects a complete non-application of mind"....