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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Mamata Banerjee re-acquires some land leased out to Tatas in Singur

-The Economic Times

 

The West Bengal government on Thursday promulgated an Ordinance to re-acquire 400 acres of the 997-acre Singur property that was leased out to the Tatas in March 2007 for the Nano project . The ordinance has been signed by governor MK Narayanan.

The ordinance presumably kills two birds with a stone.

It will enable chief minister Mamata Banerjee to keep a nearly three-year-old promise she had made to Singur's voters - when she started her agitation there - on the return of 400 acres to farmers who were forced to give up their land by the previous state government. Second, it will remove all doubts about the actual return of the land. Coming out of her room at Writers' Buildings at 7.30 pm, Mamata Banerjee said : "The state government has promulgated an ordinance today to re-acquire 400 acres of Singur land to give back to farmers. I have come to know that the Tatas had asked for compensation from the previous government against return of the leased-out land. I have also seen the letter. We are ready to give the Tatas the compensation they have asked for. We are holding talks with legal experts about this and we might even engage an arbitrator for the purpose."

The Tatas had never put a figure to the compensation. Ratan Tata had said on August 31, 2009 : "We do not want to sit on the land. We will return it if the government compensates us, for the investment made there". It is a different matter that Ravi Kant, then managing director of Tata Motors, had once said in 2008, that the Tatas by then had already invested some Rs 1,500 crore in setting up the plant on 997 acres.

The two were, in all fairness, never equated.

So there is no officially declared compensation figure available in public domain.

The chief minister went on to say: "Right now, we are not touching the balance 600 acres at Singur. If the Tatas want to utilise the land for industrial purpose, we have no objection. But we have taken 400 acres through Ordinance, as the unwilling farmers of Singur were demanding return of the land. The governor has also signed the ordinance. It is a news of great joy. The cabinet decision on this has also been taken". Mamata Banerjee also said that the state government would bring the issue up in the state assembly, when it resumes on June 24.

A Tata Motors spokesperson said : "We are not aware of such a development and we do not want to make any comment unless we have studied the Ordinance".

The suddenness of the chief minister's announcement actually caused more confusion than it cleared. Nobody was quite sure how this Ordinance came about, and everybody from officials in the state's land department to seasoned lawyers who deal with land issues everyday were confused about the possible path the government took in this case.

Indeed, the first question that arose was whether farmers would again become the owners of the land when the state government returned it. ET asked Mr Arunabha Ghosh, a celebrated legal luminary who specializes in complex land matters such as this. Mr Ghosh said : "The land is with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC). It was leased out to the Tatas. Therefore the ownership lies with WBIDC. Following the Ordinance, the Governor becomes the owner of the land. This means that farmers would not be the owners of the land, even after it is returned."

"Ownership of this 400 acres after the Ordinance will rest with the governor. All that the state government can do is to lease out this land to the farmers who were forced to part with it a few years back" he said.

A senior official of the state land department said : "There is a clause in the lease deed, which is legalese is called 'force majeure', whereby the government can 'resume back' the land within three years of the lease agreement, if the project has not become operational on ground by then on account of unforeseen circumstances like natural calamities, flood, war or civil commotion etc. However, in that case, the government needs to issue a showcause to the lessee, subsequent to which, a hearing will have to be conducted. Post this, and if the government is not satisfied, it can take the land back."

"However, in this case Tata Motors has not been issued any showcause notice as far as I know. Still, it is also true that the state government would not have taken a decision such as this, nor would the governor have signed the Ordinance, unless there were ways available, about which I may not know of" he said.

Apparently, experts say that if an amendement to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, was done, it would have required the President of India's nod. However, the land department official clarified : "If any state government wants to 'add' any clause to the central Act without diluting/amending it, then all it needs to do is to pass a Bill in the Assembly. Since the chief minister hasn't spoken about any amendment to the central Act, it is very likely that a clause may have been added - for the Bill to be passed when the assembly session begins - on the basis of which the ordinance was passed".