land acquisition/sez & displacement – 2011 - Indian Social Institute

‘Land acquisition at market price’ (4)New Delhi: As the land acquisition emerges as one of the most contentious issues, often taking politicalovertones on the question of low compensation, the Supreme Court has held that the farmers wereentitled to an award as per the latest market price entered in revenue records for any land transaction inthe area immediately before the government’s acquisition notification. The top court also said that whiledetermining the compensation for agriculture land, the government has to assess the value of the wellsand trees; both fruit bearing and other commercial woods, which are the valuable assets for any farmer.While applying these parameters for deciding the compensation to some farmers from Jalgaon area inMaharashtra for the land acquired by the state government for irrigation projects in 1996, a bench ofJustices G.S. Singhvi and H.L. Dattu enhanced the award to them six times — from `1 lakh to `6 lakhs —as was fixed by the Bombay high court. The top court rejected the Maharashtra government’s claim thatthe market value of the land at the time of issuing of the notification ranted between `54,000 and `68,000per hectare. The apex court found that in fact two sale deeds for `2.76 lakhs and `3 lakhs were registeredin the “revenue records” a few days before the government had issued the notification. The SupremeCourt rejected the state government’s claim that such high price in the two land transactions could havebeen paid due to some “specific reasons”. In fact, the high court had accepted such a stand of theMaharashtra government while overturning the compensation award fixed by the lower court at the rate of`6 lakhs per hectare on the basis of the two registered deeds. While restoring the award to `6 lakhs, theapex court also took into consideration the assessment of land price by an independent agriculture andhorticulture consultant, who had included the value of the irrigation wells, trees; both fruit bearing andcommercial woods to determining the whole package. (Asian Age 3/11/11)Posco urges state to expedite work at plant site (4)Bhubaneswar: Posco-India on Tuesday requested the Odisha government to expedite work at the projectsite of the 12 mtpa mega steel plant near Paradip. The requested was made by a delegation of Posco-India led by Posco-India CMD Y K Yoon and company's Odisha project director Y K Kim when they metIndustrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) CMD Priyabrat Patnaik. Yoon particularlymentioned about the work on the approach road to the site of the Rs Rs 52,000 crore plant. Thedelegation indicated they were keen to start work over the 2,000 acre of land so far acquired for thepurpose. "We are discussing over the matter and the government is resuming its work at the proposedproject site," Kim said after meeting the IDCO chief. IDCO looks after the land acquisition for industrialprojects in the state. "As the company was waiting for six years to establish the steel facility here, theywould not be very happy," Patnaik told reporters after meeting the delegation. Posco-India signed an MoUwith the state government on June 22, 2005 but was unable to start work at the proposed plant site due tostiff opposition from the local people. The company had originally set a target of going to first phaseproduction of 6 mtpa steel by July 2010 or 36 months from the date of taking title of land. (Zee News9/11/11)Singur stay extended to vendors’ land (4)Calcutta, Nov. 8: Calcutta High Court today allowed the 33 Nano plant vendors to become parties to theTata Motors’ appeal against the Singur rehabilitation act and restrained the state from giving out plots tofarmers from the vendors’ land. After today’s order, the Mamata Banerjee-led government would not beable to distribute plots to “unwilling” farmers from any area that had been marked out for the small-carplant or the vendor units until the disposal of the case. On November 3, the high court had restrained thegovernment from distributing plots to the farmers till the disposal of Tata Motors’ appeal challenging theverdict that upheld the validity of the Singur land act. At that time, the vendors were not party to the case.On that day, state counsel Kalyan Banerjee told the division bench of Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose andMrinal Kanti Chaudhuri that if the court imposed a stay order on the Singur Land Rehabilitation andDevelopment Act, 2011, it should be restricted to the 647 acres of the Nano mother plant. “The rest of theland (belonging to the vendors) should not be kept under the ambit of the stay order so that thegovernment can distribute it among the unwilling farmers,” Banerjee had said. Today’s order rules out thatpossibility too. Appearing for the vendors, advocate S.K. Kapoor told the division bench that the ChiefJustice had allowed his clients to be added as parties to the Tata Motors appeal. He said the land allottedto the vendors must not be distributed among the farmers. After the court’s order on the vendors’ land,Tata Motors’ counsel Samaraditya Pal started his submission against the trial court’s judgment upholding