New Delhi, Jan 7 : A Supreme Court judge Thursday quit a bench hearing a lawsuit by Reliance Power challenging the Allahabad High Court's ruling on the acquisition of farm land for the Rs. 25,000-crore power plant at Dadri, close to the national capital.

As the matter came up for hearing Justice B. S. Chauhan informed the court that he would not like to hear the issue and sit in its judgement as he had already heard the lawsuit partially in the high court.

Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan, who heads the bench, adjourned the matter to be heard by a different bench at a later date.

Formerly known as Reliance Energy Generation, the company in its lawsuit said the high court wrongly exercised its discretionary powers while not taking into account a delay of four years by farmers in challenging the acquisition by the Uttar Pradesh government.

The lawsuit said the ruling put a project of national importance in jeopardy, arguing that the farmers had challenged the acquisition of the land following instigation by business rivals.

The Allahabad High Court had asked the company to seek fresh consent for taking over land for the project.

The high court had also set aside a notification issued by the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 2004 that used urgent powers to acquire land for the proposed 7,480 MW project and said the notification bypassed a provision to invite objections from farmers.

But the company said 2,200 acres of land was acquired in 2004 and nearly 90 percent of the land owners had signed consent agreements and accepted the compensation based on prevailing market rates.

"The public purpose and importance of the acquisition is established from the fact that the state government itself pursuant to the power policy contributed a major amount of Rs. 94.71 crore out of the total compensation of Rs. 157.85 crore," the lawsuit added.

After taking over the possession, Reliance Power had received several statutory and regulatory approvals both from the state and central governments signifying support to the project, it pointed out. (IANS)