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The Supreme Court has set aside the Uttar Pradesh government’s notifications for acquiring land in Ghaziabad for leather industry.
The court said in the light of the facts of the case, the State was not justified in invoking the urgency provision under the Land Acquisition Act.
The court acted on petitions filed by villagers against the State Government’s notifications in 2006 and 2007 to acquire the land for the ‘public purpose’ of the planned development of a Leather City Project by invoking the Act's urgency provision.
The State said that its 2006 notification for the urgent land acquisition was to comply with the apex court order in 2004 directing the relocation of the bone mills and other allied leather industries as they were causing environmental pollution and health hazards in Ghaziabad.
But the villagers - citing the state Government’s delay of over two years in issuing the notifications - said that the urgency provision was unnecessarily invoked and it amounts to illegal deprivation of their right to file objection under Section 5-A of the Act.
The apex court said such projects - which contemplate the development of residential, commercial, industrial or institutional areas - require a few years in their planning, execution and implementation. Therefore, the land acquisition for the said ‘public purpose’ does not justify the invoking of the Act’s urgency provisions, it said.
Besides, the court said, acquisition of land for public purpose by itself shall not justify the exercise of power of eliminating enquiry under Section 5-A of the Act.
Noting that the State had proceeded at very slow pace in issuing the notification, the court said, therefore, that it was not justified in invoking the Act’s urgency provisions, thereby, depriving the villagers of their right to raise objections against the land acquisition.
The court said the State was “not justified in invoking the Act’s urgency provisions in an arbitrary manner by referring to our earlier directions as a defence for their illegal and arbitrary act of acquiring land without giving an opportunity of raising objections and hearing to the petitioners in terms of Section 5-A of the Act.”
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