Bareilly: The hearing on Bareilly’s defunct rubber factory assets case has been postponed till July 14 after a fire broke in Mumbai’s multi-storeyed Scindia House building where the office of the debt recovery tribunal (DRT) is located on June 2, special land acquisition officer (SLAO) Sultan Ahmed Siddiqui has said.“The hearing of the case was scheduled on June 14 but now, will be held on July 14,” Siddiqui said.Banks and moneylenders have approached the DRT to get their money back by selling off the mortgaged property of the rubber factory, Synthetic Chemicals Ltd (SCL), located on National Highway 24, 18 km from Bareilly city. The company had borrowed loans to the tune of hundreds of crore for expanding the unit. However, it was suddenly closed on July 15, 1999,Earlier, a four-member DRT team has visited Bareilly on March 5 to evaluate the assets of abandoned rubber factory. They had come after the then district magistrate RV Singh had moved an application to become a party to the case as the land on which the abandoned structure is erected is still government property which had been given on lease.The abandoned factory, which is spread over 1,170 acres, is a prime location for developing an industrial hub due to its proximity with the NH-24 and railway tracks. According to the district administration, the land was allotted to the factory with a clause that “if it is not used for the industrial purpose, the administration will be entitled to acquire the land after paying only Rs 3.5 lakh, the sum paid by the company to take over the land. According to the circle rate, the present value of the plot is around Rs 1,200 crore.The factory was allotted land in 1959 and started production in 1962. On July 15, 1999, production was stopped all of a sudden allegedly due to the failure on the part of the management.

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