The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld an Allahabad High Court order quashing the Uttar Pradesh notification to acquire 156 hectares of land for construction of residential apartments by private builders in the Greater Noida Extension area of Gautam Budh Nagar district. It ordered the return of the land to villagers.
Taking a serious view of the hurried change of land use, from industrial to residential, and forcible acquisition of the land under an emergency clause of the Land Acquisition Act, a Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly also imposed exemplary costs of Rs. 10 lakh on the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA), payable to the Supreme Court Legal Services Authority.
After the Mayawati government transferred the land, the builders started the construction of apartments and thousands of people, commercial institutions and banks invested in the property. The Supreme Court order has put a question mark on these investments.
In its order, the Bench said the reasons recorded by a Division Bench of the High Court for holding that the State Government ought not to have invoked the urgency clause under Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act and dispensed with an application under Section 5, as also its conclusion that the entire exercise of acquisition was a colourable exercise, did not suffer from any infirmity requiring interference by this court. “The SLPs filed by the GNIDA and real estate developers and builders, including Supertech and Amrapali, are dismissed.”
The Bench said it imposed costs on the GNIDA “for undertaking an exercise of allotment of land to the builders, in complete violation of the purpose for which the land was sought to be acquired, even before the approval by the government for change of land use. The amount should be paid in three months. Detailed reasons to follow.”
Earlier, when arguments resumed on Wednesday, Justice Singhvi lambasted the GNIDA. “You will not understand the psyche of the farmer. For him, land is a mother, his means of livelihood and sustenance. You are promoting the interest of the builders' lobby in the guise of the public interest. In changing the land use from industrial to residential purpose, everything is meticulously planned. Your officers know it would be handed over to builders for a private purpose, but it doesn't happen overnight. It is a brazen overreach of the judicial process.”
On Tuesday, the court criticised States for taking advantage of the colonial land acquisition law to divest farmers of their farmland.
