Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently said it was satisfied with the Central government appointing new arbitrators to hear pleas filed by 1,497 agriculturists, who are seeking higher compensation for land that was acquired for widening of the Pune-Solapur National Highway, and disposed of 11 petitions.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G.S. Kulkarni was hearing a bunch of petitions concerning acquisition of land by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the purpose to widen and lay the Pune-Solapur National Highway.
The central government recently said that it would appoint additional arbitrators.
One of the Public Interest Litigations in the High Court concerns 1,497 agriculturists who say that acquisition orders were passed in October 2011, but they are not satisfied with the compensation. In December 2008, the central government appointed an arbitrator, however the petitioners say that because he is a revenue officer, he is assigned several assignments and is heavily burdened.
The other petition states that 11,157 appeals are pending before the arbitrator, in addition to 1,376 appeals pending since 2010. Therefore, the arbitrator will take several years to decide on their appeals. They say justice is being delayed as the land has already been taken over by the authorities, and consequently about 10,183 villagers have been adversely affected.
The petitioners moved the court to urge the government to take steps to appoint one or more full-time arbitrators for Solapur district to decide on the appeals under the National Highways Act, 1956, and direct the additional commissioner and the arbitrator to decide the appeals within six months. They also demanded that current arbitrator be replaced and guidelines be set for the proceedings.
Their other contention was that since the deputy collector, who decided the order of compensation, is junior to the arbitrator (the additional commissioner), there is likelihood of bias.
The NHAI filed an affidavit that compensation was deposited with 725 of the 3,250 land owners and the payment was done in its entirety from November 2011 to June 2015. It said that the land owners had moved the court after receiving all the compensation.
The court said the central government’s decision to appoint additional arbitrators was a positive step, and directed them to make an endeavour to dispose of the pending applications as early as possible, preferably within 12 months.
