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Make land losers beneficiaries of acquisition: Supreme Court by J Venkatesan


Revisit century-old Act, Bench asks Parliament, Law Commission 

Expressing concern over the plight of farmers and others whose rights are affected when their land is acquired for development, the Supreme Court has said there is need for Parliament and the Law Commission to revisit the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, which is more than a century old.

Acquisition affects the vital rights of farmers and gives rise to litigation and agitations, said a Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan (since retired) and Justices R.V. Raveendran and D.K. Jain. It was disposing of last week a batch of appeals on acquisition of about 3,000 acres of land in 14 villages for formation of the Arkavathi layout by the Bangalore Development Authority.

Writing the judgment, Justice Raveendran said the Act required the urgent attention of the State governments and development authorities with reference to: absence of proper or adequate survey and planning before embarking on acquisition; indiscriminate use of emergency provisions; notification of areas far larger than what is actually required, for acquisition, and then making arbitrary deletions from the acquisition; offer of a very low amount as compensation and delay in payment necessitating references to court in almost all cases and the absence of rehabilitation measures.

While the plight of project oustees and land losers affected by acquisition for industries had been frequently highlighted in the media, there was very little effort to draw attention to the plight of farmers affected by frequent acquisitions for urban development, the Bench pointed out.

“We have come across Development Authorities which resort to ‘developmental activities' by acquiring land and forming layouts, not with the goal of achieving planned development or providing plots at reasonable costs in well-formed layouts, but to provide work to their employees and generate funds for payment of salaries.”

Traumatic experience

Any development scheme should be to benefit society and improve the city, and not to benefit the development authority. Inclusion of land in an acquisition notification was a traumatic experience for the owner, particularly if he was eking out his livelihood from that land. If large areas were notified and then large extents were deleted, it would breed corruption and nepotism among officials. “It also creates hostility, mutual distrust and disharmony among the villagers, dividing them on the lines of ‘those who can influence and get their land deleted' and ‘those who cannot'. Touts and middlemen flaunting political connections flourish, extracting money for getting land deleted. Why subject a large number to citizens to such traumatic experience? Why not plan properly before embarking upon an acquisition process?”

Why rob Peter to pay Paul?

The Bench said: “Where the beneficiaries of acquisition were private individuals, there was a general feeling among the land losers that their land was taken away to benefit other classes of people. This would amount to robbing Peter to pay Paul; that their land is given to others for exploitation or enjoyment, while they are denied their land and their source of livelihood. When this grievance and resentment remains unaddressed, it leads to unrest and agitations. The solution is to make the land losers also the beneficiaries of acquisition so that the land losers would not feel alienated but would welcome acquisition.”

The Bench said: “It is necessary to evolve tailor-made schemes to suit particular acquisitions, so that they will be smooth, speedy, litigation-free and beneficial to all concerned. Proper planning, adequate counselling, and timely mediation with different groups of land losers should be resorted to.”

In the instant case, while a single judge of the Karnataka High Court quashed the acquisition notification, a Division Bench upheld it and also the finding that there was discrimination in acquisition of some land. The Supreme Court Bench affirmed the directions of the Division Bench with some modifications.