Ahmedabad, Oct. 15: The Tatas’ troubled small car faces another roadblock in its new home in Sanand with a little known organisation filing a PIL against the project in Gujarat High Court.

The petition alleges procedural violations in allotting the land for the Nano at the cost of farmers.

H.K. Thakkar, the Gandhinagar-based president of the Rashtriya Kisan Dal, today walked into the chamber of Chief Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan to submit his petition, written in Gujarati, questioning the government decision to “change the use of land” and giving it to the Tatas at a “throwaway price”.

Expressing his inability to read Gujarati, the chief justice, who hails from Kerala, asked the petitioner to get his application translated into English and come after the Diwali vacation.

Advocate-general Kamal Trivedi said the petitioner’s main grievance was regarding the “land price” and “adequate compensation” to farmers who are claiming ownership rights over the 1,100 acres given to the Tatas.

The government has transferred the land, which was with the Anand Agricultural University, to the Tatas after they moved out of Singur.

Though details of the deal are not known, the Narendra Modi government has said the Tatas will have to buy the land at the market price. Sources said the market rate was around Rs 25 lakh per acre before the deal, but has shot up.

Work at the project site in Sanand, 35km west of Ahmedabad, is on in full swing and construction is expected to begin shortly.

However, few could shed light on either the petitioner or on his outfit. Neither the farmers of Chharodi village — where the project is coming up — nor the 23 agitating farmers of the nearby hamlet of Khoda know anything about Thakkar who appears to be championing their cause.

The agitating farmers are not against the project, but in a notice to the state has claimed the land had been leased to the government by their forefathers in the 1900s and should be handed over to them now.

Mukesh Vaghela, a farmer leader from Khoda, was surprised when asked about Thakkar. “I have no idea about this man,” he said, adding that like Thakkar, the farmers of Khoda are also contemplating legal action. “We are waiting for the reply to the notice from the Ahmedabad collector.”