The Madras High Court Bench here has directed the State government to explain how it amended the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 after the expiry of statutorily permitted period of one year from January 1, 2014, the day when the Central legislation came into force.
A Division Bench of Justices Nooty Ramamohana Rao and Justice S.S. Sundar posed the question while hearing a joint writ petition filed by 12 landowners from Ramanathapuram district challenging the validity of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2014.
Senior Counsel P. Wilson, appearing for the writ petitioners, said that the State amendment to the Central enactment received the assent of the President on January 1, 2015 but got published in the government gazette only on January 5, 2015, four days after the expiry of the time limit prescribed under Section 105(3) of the parent Act.
Status quo
Finding force in his submissions, the Division Bench directed the State government to maintain status quo with respect to acquisition of petitioners’ lands for UppurThermal Power Project and making the provisions of the Act inapplicable to acquisitions made for industrial purposes, widening highways and so on. In an affidavit filed through their counsel on record, C. Arul Vadivel Sekar, the petitioners claimed that the State government had planned to acquire 1,342.11 acres for establishing two units of 800 MW power plant at Uppur. According to a rough estimate, about 1 lakh people from 38 villages would be affected due to acquisition of lands for the project.
While accusing the State government and district administration of going ahead with preparatory works for the project despite objections raised by many to acquisition of their fertile lands, the petitioners claimed that the State had amended the Right to Fair Compensation Act to deny a just and reasonable compensation for the owners of lands proposed to be acquired.
The landowners also filed a separate writ petition seeking a direction to declare certain provisions of the Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Lands for Industrial Purposes Act, 1997 too unconstitutional, arbitrary and repugnant to the provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation Act, 2013.
