In a significant ruling, the Madras High Court on Wednesday declared as illegal all land acquisitions made since September 27, 2013 under three legislations — the Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Harijan Welfare Scheme Act of 1978, Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Industrial Purposes Act of 1997 and Tamil Nadu Highways Act of 2001.
Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, however, said that their ruling would not apply to lands that had already been put to use and in instances where the purpose for which they were acquired had been accomplished.
The High Court judgment would have a bearing on lands that were yet to be used, such as those acquired for phase II of the Chennai Metro project under the 1997 Act.
Counter to Central law
The judges allowed a batch of cases that challenged the Constitutional validity of a State amendment made to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act of 2013, a Central legislation, by enacting the Right to Fair Compensation and Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Tamil Nadu) Act of 2014.
Section 105 of the Central Act had exempted its application to acquisitions made for 13 different purposes such as laying of national highways, creation of railway lines and erecting electricity towers.
Taking a cue from this, the State government brought in a local amendment exempting its application to acquisitions made by it for State highways, industrial purposes and Harijan welfare.
However, as argued by senior counsel P. Wilson and Suhrith Parthasarathy, such an amendment made by insertion of Section 105A in the 2013 Act did not comply with the requirement of Article 254 of the Constitution, the judges said, and held that the State ought to have actually reenacted all the three legislations and obtained the President’s assent.
Authoring the judgment, Justice Prasad pointed out that Article 254(1) makes it clear that in case of a repugnancy between a Central law and a State law, the former would prevail. In such circumstances, the three State laws on acquisition of lands should be deemed to have become void immediately after the enactment of the 2013 Act by Parliament.
Further, a reading of Article 254(2) makes it clear that while dealing with subjects which fall within the realm of both the Centre as well as the State under List III (Concurrent List) of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, the latter must necessarily reenact laws that had become void on account of being repugnant and then obtain the President’s assent, the judges said.
In so far as the present issue was concerned, the State had attempted to save its three laws by simply inserting Section 105A into the Central legislation through the 2014 amendment and obtaining the President’s assent on January 1, 2015. Further, the State amendment had been given retrospective effect from January 1, 2014, from when the Central law had come into force.
Finding fault with that procedure too, the judges pointed out that the Central legislation had received the President’s assent on September 27, 2013 and was brought into effect from January 1, 2014. Therefore, for all practical purposes it must be construed that the three State laws had become virtually otiose on September 27, 2013 itself and not on January 1, 2014, they said.
When such was the position, the State amendment being given retrospective effect from January 1, 2014 would have no meaning at all since on that day, the three State legislations were not valid laws at all on account of them having suffered repugnancy about three months ago, the Division Bench held.
