In many tribal areas, those whose lands have been acquired by the government have taken to violence. The urban landowners are also subjected to inequity, but instead of taking up bows, arrows and guns, they go to the court and suffer years of litigation costs and angst. Those who can sustain the suits for years do succeed in the final court, as shown by two recent cases on land acquisition.
Both appeals were by villagers whose lands were taken over by the government: One for industrial, institutional and recreational purposes, and the other for building a jail. In both cases, they had to fight for years to get justice.
The first case was Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation versus Shakuntla. Farmlands were acquired in 2002 for industrial development and immediately there were lawsuits. The landholders moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court alleging discrimination. The court asked the government to set up a high-power committee to lay down fair parameters for acquisition. It did so, but the farmers still lost their lands, while a commercial firm got its land released from acquisition. This led to a second round of litigation.
The farmers approached the high court against the discrimination. The high court found that the government applied the criteria in a biased manner. Even the facts were fudged to benefit the firm. When the appeal came to the Supreme Court, it largely upheld the views of the high court. The Supreme Court said that the action smacked of bias in favour of the industrial unit.
The judgment commented: “This procedure of release of the land notified for acquisition clearly does not conform to the guidelines that were formulated and approved in the first place… The manner in which it was released and the grounds that were relied on for its release are fraught with defects that raise doubts regarding the impartiality and sincerity of the authority. The task of such authority is no doubt to ensure the smooth execution of the development plans and since they have a first-hand knowledge of the ground realities, they are surely at a better position than anyone else to decide as to which land is to be acquired and which is to be released. But when there has been a guideline laid down for the same task and it has been approved and notified, the issue becomes a matter of policy which the authority has to follow with a reasonable amount of uniformity.”
The responsibility of the government is higher than that of private entities as the former is bound to follow the constitutional guarantees granted to citizens. The discretion to change a policy by exercising the executive power must be applied fairly and should not give the impression that the policy change was done arbitrarily or on some ulterior criteria.
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This principle, based on the equality doctrine under Article 14 of the Constitution, has been asserted in several cases of the Supreme Court. It has been emphasised that where a particular mode is prescribed for carrying out an act and there is no impediment in adopting the procedure, the deviation to act in a different manner which does not disclose any discernible principle that is reasonable itself shall be labelled as arbitrary.
It is important, the judgment noted, that the process of development and industrialisation as planned and approved by the legislature should not meet a dead end because of a small stretch of land. Therefore, the court released the land of the farmers from acquisition with certain conditions.
While discrimination against the landowners was the theme of the above case, the next one, Subh Ram vs State of Haryana, dealt with another staple of land acquisition cases — inadequate compensation. This case was being fought in the courts since 1985. The Haryana government sought to acquire land at the rate of Rs 60,000 per acre. The first appellate court raised the amount to Rs 1.75 lakh. The farmers moved the high court for further increase but the demand was rejected. Therefore, they appealed to the Supreme Court.
The farmers now got compensation at the rate of Rs 2.87 lakh per acre. In addition, the apex court granted a solatium at 30 per cent and an interest on the total compensation. But it took them two decades to get the benefit.
It was only six months ago that the Supreme Court pointed out in graphic detail how land acquisitions led to “ruination of poor families who are robbed of their only means of sustenance” by exploiting their illiteracy and lack of counselling. The apex court made these observations in the Special Land Acquisition Officer vs Mahaboob. The recent events show the consequences of such callous policies.