SC notice to J’Khand on land acquisition
The state, along with Gujarat, Andhra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, has diluted provisions of the 2013 central Act, says a petition in apex court
RANCHI: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to Jharkhand and four other states, seeking their responses to a petition challenging the validity of certain amendments made by these states in the central land acquisition law.
The state’s BJP-led Raghubar Das government had made amendments in the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, to speed up acquisition of land for “public purposes”, including schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, housing for poor, irrigation, railway line and electrification.
Through these amendments, the provision of undertaking a mandatory social impact assessment (SIA) study before acquiring land for the public purposes was exempted.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta issued the notices to five states on a petition filed by social and environmental activist Medha Patkar and others.
The petitioners have urged the court to strike down the amendments made by these states, including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, as the changes violated the rights of livelihood of land owners and farmers.
They alleged that the basic structure of the original central Act had been changed to give exemption to large categories of projects from consent provisions, including SIA, objections by affected citizens, participation of local bodies and others.
Highlighting the case of Jharkhand, the petitioner stated that the state government, through the amendment in SIA provisions, had changed the notice period for ensuring participation in public hearing to two weeks from three weeks, given in original central Act.
The state government, according to petitioners, has also diluted rules for return of unutilised land acquired under the Act. It had omitted the provision of returning land to the original owners or their legal heirs if the land was lying unutilised for more than five years. Such land would revert to the government’s land bank, the petitioners highlighted.
The petitioners alleged that the Jharkhand government had also diluted the provision of food security. They stated that the government had increased the maximum limit of acquisition of irrigated multi-cropped land to 2% from 1% of the total land of such category in the state.
With regard to acquisition of other agricultural land, the maximum limit had been increased to 25% from 5% of the total net sown area in the state, the petitioners claimed.
Earlier, in 2017, the Jharkhand assembly passed the amendment bill in August with a voice vote amid a walkout by opposition parties and was then sent to the President for his consent.
The opposition parties had demanded its rollback and had met the President, urging him not to give his consent. The bill finally got the Presidential nod in May this year.
When contacted, revenue and land reforms department secretary KK Soan said, “I have npt yet come across any such order passed by the apex court. I, therefore, can’t comment on this.”