-PTI   To step in to prevent “more Nandigrams” The Supreme Court on Monday criticised the Uttar Pradesh government for acquiring prime agricultural land to build luxury flats in Greater Noida and questioned the invoking of an urgency clause that bars farmers from raising objections. It noted it would step in to prevent “more Nandigrams.” “Whose residential use are these flats for? Who is building them? What are the prices? We want to...

The Supreme Court on Monday told the government to dump the archaic Land Acquisition Act to prevent Nandigram-like violent protests in every state, sounding the warning that it would step in to safeguard public interest if the authorities failed to do the needful. "The perspective has to change. The public purpose clause in the 1894 Act must go. If the government does not do it, then this court has to act....

-PTI   The West Bengal government today submitted before the Calcutta high court that it was not against the Tatas but in favour of farmers and employment generation. Contesting the Tata Motors Ltd prayer that the Singur Rehabilitation and Development Act 2011 be declared unconstitutional, senior counsel for the government Saktinath Mukherjee submitted before Justice Saumitra Pal that the government was answerable to the people as 1000 acres of fertile land was...

The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government, as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh and in other states earlier, occur because patterns of violence are inbuilt into the process. Despite a bill pending in Parliament since 2007, there has been little effort by political parties to evolve a consensus on acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The law as at present and also the provisions...

-PTI   The Calcutta high court on Monday refused to pass an interim order restraining the West Bengal government from distributing to farmers in Singur the land acquired earlier to set up Tata'a car manufacturing unit. On Tata Motor's plea that an interim injunction be passed to restrain distribution of the land from tomorrow, Justice Saumitra Pal said in that case the company's original petition challenging the Singur Land Rehablitation and Development...