The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the land initially acquired by the West Bengal government for Tata Motors’s car plant in Singur should now go back to the farmers, while snubbing the company’s arguments over its existing lease-hold rights over the land.

A Bench of Justices H L Dattu and Dipak Misra noted that since Tata has already moved out of West Bengal and set up its Nano manufacturing factory in Gujarat, the very purpose of acquisition of the land had altered.